Table 2.

Utility, limitations, and importance of animal models in oral science.

Essential for testing or discovering:

• Cause-and-effect relationships

• New biological concepts

• Preclinical safety and efficacy of candidate drugs

• Biological significance of in vitro findings

• Identification of novel potential virulence factors

• Identification of novel potential therapeutic targets

Limitations:

• Do not faithfully replicate all aspects of human disease

• Need to confine their use to addressing hypotheses related to specific disease aspects

• More than one model may be required to obtain adequate insight

Contributions to the understanding and treatment of oral diseases:

• Etiologic role of bacteria and sucrose in dental caries

• Etiologic role of bacteria and host response in periodontitis

• Laying the foundation for mucosal immunization against pathogens that colonize or invade via mucosal surfaces

• Dysbiosis rather than individual pathogens cause periodontitis

• Mechanistic underpinnings substantiating the epidemiological association of periodontitis with inflammatory comorbidities

• Genetic basis of host susceptibility/resistance to caries or periodontitis

• Discovery that tetracyclines inhibit tissue breakdown independently of antimicrobial action: anticollagenolytic effects

• Identification of IL-23 blockade for the treatment of human LAD1 periodontitis

• Identification of complement C3 as therapeutic target in human periodontitis (phase 2a trial)