REVIEW article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbial Symbioses
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1656926
This article is part of the Research TopicMutualistic and Antagonistic Interactions in the Human Oral MicrobiomeView all 7 articles
A brief review of membrane vesicles of Streptococcus mutans
Provisionally accepted
Lili QiuQinxia ChenGaozhe ZhengHaiyun DongMuxin XuJieyu ZhouLingjun Zhang
Yan SunMin Wang
Yangyang PanJie Yu*
Yihuai Pan*
Keke Zhang*- School and Hospital of Stomatology, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China
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Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans), a prime conditionally cariogenic organism, produces membrane vesicles (MVs) containing proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids, including cariogenic virulence factors. Factors, including culture conditions, peptide signals, bacterial strains, and genes, affect the size and contents of MVs. Based on the composition of their contents, MVs play a wide range of roles in self-regulation, microbial interspecies communication, and microbe-host interactions, which have important potential applications in the fields of vaccine research and disease treatment. Here, we summarize recent developments in the biogenesis, influencing factors, composition, and functions of S. mutans MVs to lay a theoretical foundation for their potential clinical application and future research.
Keywords: Streptococcus mutans, membrane vesicles, Biogenesis, composition, Functions
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 19 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qiu, Chen, Zheng, Dong, Xu, Zhou, Zhang, Sun, Wang, Pan, Yu, Pan and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jie Yu, 735385443@qq.com
Yihuai Pan, yihuaipan@wmu.edu.cn
Keke Zhang, zhangkk@wmu.edu.cn
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