Dental Floss Replaces Vaccine Needles in Groundbreaking Study

Fear of needles is a major hurdle for vaccine uptake, even for adults.

Now, researchers have developed a clever, needle-free alternative: dental floss.

Flossing for Flu Protection: A New Frontier in Vaccination

Dental floss, typically used for cleaning teeth, is being explored as a novel method for delivering vaccines, potentially easing needle phobia and improving immune response.

• Researchers are investigating dental floss as a needle-free vaccine delivery system.
• The method targets the junctional epithelium, a leaky gum tissue rich in immune cells.
• Early tests in mice showed strong immune responses and protection against flu.
• Human trials using dye suggest the approach could be effective in people.
• Floss-based vaccines offer advantages in ease of transport, storage, and administration.

A team from Texas Tech University has identified a unique entry point for vaccines within the mouth: the junctional epithelium (JE). This specialized tissue, located where gums meet teeth, is naturally permeable. Researchers hypothesized that this “leakiness” could efficiently deliver vaccine antigens and leverage the abundant immune cells present to stimulate an adaptive immune response.

“We hypothesized that this leakiness of the JE could expedite the entry of vaccine antigens, and the abundance of immune cells in this microenvironment could elicit an adaptive immune response,” the researchers write in their recently published paper.

Could your oral hygiene routine become your next immunization?

The JE’s tucked-away location within the gumline has made it a challenging target for drug delivery, including vaccines. However, dental floss’s ability to navigate tight spaces makes it an ideal candidate for reaching this area. Researchers tested this innovative approach by coating dental floss with various vaccine types and administering it to mice over several weeks.

Researchers targeted a specific part of the mouth in mice.

The results were highly promising. Mice exhibited robust immune responses in both their mouths and systemically. Crucially, the floss-delivered vaccine successfully protected the mice against a subsequent influenza infection.

Further studies involving human volunteers used a harmless dye instead of a vaccine, as full clinical trials are still in the future. The amount of dye that successfully reached the JE via flossing indicated that this method could indeed be effective in humans.

“These findings establish floss-based vaccination as a simple, needle-free strategy that enhances vaccine delivery and immune activation compared with existing mucosal immunization methods,” the researchers state.

Did you know? Dental floss is also being developed as a diagnostic tool to detect stress levels by analyzing saliva.

Beyond alleviating needle phobia, floss-based vaccines could revolutionize vaccine logistics. Their ease of transport and storage, coupled with the potential for self-administration, makes them highly advantageous, especially during public health crises like pandemics.

Previous attempts at oral vaccination, such as sublingual or buccal delivery, faced challenges with insufficient vaccine penetration into the bloodstream. This new floss-based strategy, while still requiring further development, shows significant promise.

“Due to drawbacks associated with injectable vaccines, such as pain and needle phobia, potential transmission of blood-borne pathogens from unsafe injection practices and the limited activation of mucosal immunity, there is a need for alternative approaches for vaccine delivery,” the researchers explain.

This groundbreaking research has been published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.