Fig. 3

A The microbial balance between commensals and pathogens can be disrupted by frequent sugar consumption and poor oral hygiene. B Dex-IONP was supplemented with glucose oxidase (GOx) by Koo's group to produce the Dex-IONP-GOx bifunctional nanohybrid system. GOx can convert glucose into H₂O₂ within the plaque biofilm, thereby depriving S. mutans of its food source. Without additional H₂O₂, Dex-IONP can directly catalyze H₂O₂ in an acidic microenvironment and generate ROS to destroy microorganisms. C Their findings indicate that the efficacy of this system surpasses that of Dex-IONP alone by a substantial margin. Moreover, it exhibits a more precise targeting of S. mutans (> 107 reduction) while displaying minimal impact on other symbiotic beneficial bacteria [96, 97]