A noteworthy prevalence of a recently discovered serotype of oral bacterium, with a possible link to a number of systemic diseases, was found for the first time in a small cohort of African-American schoolchildren in a southwest Alabama town, according to research conducted by Stephanie Momeni, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Momeni presented her research, conducted in the laboratory of Noel Childers, DDS, Joseph F. Volker Endowed Chair and Chair of UAB’s Department of Pediatric Dentistry, at the American Society for Microbiology General Meeting in New Orleans on June 1. The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research provided research funding for the project. Momeni is a Dental Academic Research Training predoctoral fellow in UAB’s School of Dentistry.

Streptococcus mutans serotype k, first discovered in Japan in 2004, has been linked to a number of systemic diseases, including bacteremia, infective endocarditis and hemorrhagic stroke. However, the bacteria evaluated in the present study were missing the proteins suggested to link S. mutans serotype k with these systemic diseases, says Momeni, a doctoral candidate in the UAB Department of Biology, which is housed in UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences.