In
addition, healthy volunteers ingesting a vaccine containing S.
mutans produced and secreted specific anti–S. mutan IgA antibodies
in colostrum, milk, tears, and saliva after immunization
[6,30]. In recent studies, an oral intake of live or killed probiotic
bacteria has been found to induce a strain-specific IgA response
and a non-specific total IgA in the saliva of healthy subjects
[28–31]. High levels of salivary SIgA have been found in infants
fed fermented milk containing Lactobacillus casei [29].