Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I propose this Special Issue entitled, “In Silico Novel Drug Design Targeting the Oral Microbiome”.

The oral cavity is composed of about 300 million species of bacteria that occupy various ecological niches. It is well known that dental plaque is a major ecological niche and is a biofilm composed of diverse bacterial species housed in a exopolysaccharide matrix. It is also noteworthy that viable bacterial species are found in saliva, gingival crevice fluid, and also colonizing soft tissues such as the dorsum of the tongue, tonsils, and faucial pillars. In this context, it is also to be emphasized that many oral diseases have a microbial etiology. Amongst these, dental caries and periodontal diseases are most common and prevalent. Endodontic infections that occur as a sequelae of untreated dental caries are also predominantly bacterial in etiology. In addition to bacteria, the oral cavity also houses viruses, fungi, and parasites which act as commensals and at times as parasites causing infections. The role of fungi such as candida and viruses belonging to the Herpesviridae family in causing premalignant oral lesions and oral cancer have been well documented. Considering this background, an array of therapeutic strategies in the form of drugs have been developed for the management of oral diseases. However, there are many inherent factors that impede drug action against bacteria, viruses, and parasites in the oral cavity. These are mainly due to the drug resistance genes developed by microbes, quorum sensing mechanisms, and presence of drug metabolizing enzymes in the oral biofilm, to name a few.

This Special Issue focuses on in silico studies that aim at designing novel drug molecules against the oral microbiome for the management of dental caries, endodontic infections, periodontal disease, and oral cancer.

Prof. Dr. Luca Testarelli
Guest Editor

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• in silico studies
• putative periodontal pathogens
• biofilm
• dental plaque
• periodontitis
• dental caries
• oral cancer
• computational biology
• pharmaceutical preparations
• Treponema denticola
• Porphyromonas gingivalis
• Tannerella forsythia
• Enterococcus fecalis
• chemoinformatics
• computer-aided drug design
• docking