In vitro evaluation of dental erosion preventive effects of various plant extracts

The aim of this thesis was to evaluate the effect of some plant extracts with the ability to inhibit MMP activity to dentin erosion in vitro. For this purpose, 7 experimental groups [distilled water (negative control), fluoride (positive control), green tea, rosehip, clove, pomegranate and grape seed], each consisting of 20 dentin samples obtained from drawn cattle teeth, were formed. The specimens were exposed to demineralization (0,3% citric acid, pH 2.45, 5 min) and remineralization (artificial saliva, 60 min) three times daily for 3 days as 5 min plant extract application before each erosive episode. At the end of the experiment, surface roughness and maximum depth values of dentin samples were examined using AFM while the hardness values of all the samples were examined by nanoindentation. Morphological changes on the surface were analyzed by SEM. The data was analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test for the comparison of the experimental groups, and the Friedman test for the intra-group evaluations. The significance was set to 0.05. According to the obtained data, the highest microhardness value is observed in the clove group whereas the lowest microhardness value is in the samples of the grape seed group. While there was a statistically significant difference between all groups, the most microhardness change was also seen in the clove group. The highest surface roughness values were found in fluoride and clove groups; the least surface roughness value was seen in the grape seed group, but there was no statistical significance between the groups. The highest maximum depth value was in the clove group; the lowest depth value was obtained in the rose hip group and no statistically significant difference was observed between these two values. Macromolecular deposits were observed in AFM and SEM images of pomegranate, Colgate and rosehip groups. According to the results, it was found that the clove group showed better results in surface analysis than all other groups, and green tea in addition to clove was effective in preventing dentin erosion.