Role of Chemically Modified Tetracyclines in the Management of Periodontal Diseases: A Review.

Researchers have found that Chemically Modified Tetracyclines (CMTs) act through multiple mechanisms, affecting several parameters of osteoclast function and consequently inhibit bone resorption by altering intracellular calcium concentration and interacting with the putative calcium receptor; decreasing ruffled border area; diminishing acid production; diminishing the secretion of lysosomal cysteine proteinases (cathepsins); inducing cell retraction by affecting podosomes; inhibiting osteoclast gelatinase activity; selectively inhibiting osteoclast ontogeny or development; and inducing apoptosis or programmed cell death of osteoclasts. Thus TCs/CMTs, as anti-resorptive drugs, may act similarly to bisphosphonates and primarily affect osteoclast function. Researchers have evaluated the influence of various chemically modified tetracyclines from CMT-1 to CMT-10 on collagenases and gelatinases through in vitro or animal studies and concluded that all the CMTs except CMT-5 inhibited periodontal breakdown through MMP inhibition in the following order of efficacy: CMT-8>CMT-1>CMT-3>CMT-4>CMT-7.

Biomarkers and chemopreventives in oral carcinogenesis and its prevention.

Squamous cell carcinoma is the predominant type of oral malignancy and is a result of oral carcinogenesis. Oral carcinogenesis is a mutifactorial and complex process related to the sequential occurrence of alterations in genetic structures, promoting inhibitory or excitatory effects of the tumor oncogenes and gene suppressors, compromising the histophysiology of the division, differentiation and cell death; and therefore, methods to prevent, detect, or treat it in the best way is constantly being searched for. Biomarkers reveal the genetic and molecular changes related to early, intermediate and late endpoints in the process of oral carcinogenesis.