• Shuichi Tonomura, Masafumi Ihara, Tomohiro Kawano, Tomotaka Tanaka, Yoshinori Okuno, Satoshi Saito, Robert P Friedland, Nagato Kuriyama, Ryota Nomura, Yoshiyuki Watanabe, Kazuhiko Nakano, Kazunori Toyoda, and Kazuyuki Nagatsuka.
• Division of Neurology, Department of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, 5-7-1 Fujishiro-dai, Suita, Osaka 565-8565, Japan.
• Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 5; 6: 20074.

AbstractOral infectious diseases are epidemiologically associated with stroke. We previously showed that oral Streptococcus mutans with the cnm gene encoding a collagen-binding Cnm protein induced intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) experimentally and was also associated with cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) in our population-based cohort study. We therefore investigated the roles of cnm-positive Streptococcus mutans in this single hospital-based, observational study that enrolled 100 acute stroke subjects. The cnm gene in Streptococcus mutans isolated from saliva was screened using PCR techniques and its collagen-binding activities examined. CMBs were evaluated on T2* gradient-recalled echo MRI. One subject withdrew informed consent and 99 subjects (63 males) were analyzed, consisting of 67 subjects with ischemic stroke, 5 with transient ischemic attack, and 27 with ICH. Eleven cases showed Streptococcus mutans strains positive for cnm. The presence of cnm-positive Streptococcus mutans was significantly associated with ICH [OR vs. ischemic stroke, 4.5; 95% CI, 1.17-19.1] and increased number of deep CMBs [median (IQR), 3 (2-9) vs. 0 (0-1), p = 0.0002]. In subjects positive for Streptococcus mutans, collagen binding activity was positively correlated with the number of deep CMBs (R(2) = 0.405; p < 0.0001). These results provide further evidence for the key role of oral health in stroke.

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