Build your own calculus

This collection contains protocols for growing a calcifying oral biofilm model. Protocols include artificial saliva, a mineralising solution (CPMU), an alpha-amylase activity assay, and a biofilm growth protocol with starch treatments.

The purpose of these protocols is to explore fundamental aspects of using dental calculus to infer dietary patterns in past populations. The main protocol contains starch treatments to look at the incorporation and extraction of starch granules from dental calculus, but can also be used to look at other dietary components, such as various proteins, other plant extracts, and whatever else may have been consumed in the past.

Protocols are modified protocols from Sissons et al. (1991) and Extercate et al. (2010)