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In this study, we developed a coordination compound consisting of zinc chloride and erythritol that exhibits penetrating and bactericidal activity against<jats:italic>Streptococcus mutans<\/jats:italic>biofilms. An<jats:italic>in vitro<\/jats:italic>biofilm model was established in microplates, and bactericidal activity against biofilms was evaluated using an Alamar blue assay. The cause of the antimicrobial activity of the zinc-erythritol mixture on mature biofilms was demonstrated using fast atom bombardment-mass spectrometry, confocal laser scanning microscopy and atomic force microscopy. We demonstrated that zinc chloride spontaneously formed cationic complexes with erythritol in water. The zinc-erythritol complexes reduced intra- and inter-molecular interactions between bacterial exopolysaccharides, a major component of EPS. This activity was confirmed by measuring the attenuation of the hardness of dried polysaccharides isolated from<jats:italic>S. mutans<\/jats:italic>biofilms. The reduction in the interactions between polysaccharides allowed the complexes to penetrate into biofilms and kill the embedded bacteria. While approximately 13% of biofilm-associated microbes were killed by a 10\u2009min treatment with 6.6\u2009mM zinc chloride, 45% were killed when a solution containing 19.8\u2009mM erythritol and 6.6\u2009mM zinc chloride was used. This strategy of leveraging the coordination properties of metal ions with sugar alcohols provides a simple way to effectively remove mature biofilms using only conventional substances without the need for intricate chemical synthesis processes.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-018-34366-y","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2018,10,26]],"date-time":"2018-10-26T09:36:01Z","timestamp":1540546561000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":18,"title":["Penetration of an antimicrobial zinc-sugar alcohol complex into Streptococcus mutans biofilms"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0170-6841","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jong Hyun","family":"Lim","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yongbeom","family":"Jeong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sang-Hun","family":"Song","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jae-Hyun","family":"Ahn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jeong Rae","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sang-Min","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2018,11,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"34366_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"135","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(01)05321-1","volume":"358","author":"PS Stewart","year":"2001","unstructured":"Stewart, P. 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