Salivary secretory disorders are life-disrupting pathologic conditions with a high prevalence, especially in the geriatric population. Both patients and clinicians frequently feel helpless and get frustrated by the currently available therapeutic strategies, which consist mainly of palliative managements. Accordingly, to unravel the underlying mechanisms and to develop effective and curative strategies, several animal models have been developed and introduced. Experimental findings from these models have contributed to answer biological and biomedical questions. This review aims to provide various methodological considerations used for the examination of pathological fundamentals in salivary disorders using animal models and to summarize the obtained findings. The information provided in this review could provide plausible solutions for overcoming salivary disorders and also suggest purpose-specific experimental animal systems.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious infectious disease with considerable fatality, typically affecting the pulmonary system and, rarely, other body organs including the oral cavity. Due to the rarity of oral TB, it is frequently overlooked in differential diagnosis of oral lesions. Despite a declining trend in TB incidence in recent years, it is still a major public health problem with high contagiousness, thereby requiring the early diagnosis and prompt treatment. A 57-year-old male patient presented with chief complaint of painful ulcer on tip of his tongue. He reported that the ulcer developed without any remarkable event such as mechanical trauma, vesicle formation or systemic illness. His past medical history revealed the TB over 40 years ago, which had reportedly healed after pharmacological treatments. As the ulceration persisted after topical steroid application and careful education about avoiding possible mechanical stimuli, biopsy was performed and histological finding showed typical findings of oral tuberculosis including intense granulomatous inflammatory features with small red rods of mycobacterial organisms as well as epithelioid cells and Langhans giant cells. After suitable antituberculosis treatments, oral tuberculosis ulcer was almost completely healed. We present a case of oral TB affecting tip of the tongue in a patient with a history of pulmonary TB and emphasize the understanding of intraoral manifestations for early diagnosis and prompt treatment of TB. The present case represented the importance of understanding oral tuberculosis manifestations for dental clinicians who might be frequently the first health care professionals to encounter various oral lesions.

In the present study, we examined the bone healing capacity of Meox2, a homeobox gene that plays essential roles in the differentiation of a range of developing tissues, and identified its putative function in palatogenesis. We applied the knocking down of Meox2 in human periodontal ligament fibroblasts to examine the osteogenic potential of Meox2. Additionally, we applied in vivo periodontitis induced experiment to reveal the possible application of Meox2 knockdown for 1 and 2 weeks in bone healing processes. We examined the detailed histomorphological changes using Masson’s trichrome staining and micro-computed tomography evaluation. Moreover, we observed the localization patterns of various signaling molecules, including α-SMA, CK14, IL-1β, and MPO to examine the altered bone healing processes. Furthermore, we investigated the process of bone formation using immunohistochemistry of Osteocalcin and Runx2. On the basis of the results, we suggest that the knocking down of Meox2 via the activation of osteoblast and modulation of inflammation would be a plausible answer for bone regeneration as a gene therapy. Additionally, we propose that the purpose-dependent selection and application of developmental regulation genes are important for the functional regeneration of specific tissues and organs, where the pathological condition of tooth loss lesion would be.

To evaluate the repeatability of the surface EMG variables of myoelectric signals from the masseter and temporalis muscles according to three methods to induce maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) i...