A molecular survey of S. mutans and P. gingivalis oral microbial burden in human saliva using Relative Endpoint Polymerase Chain Reaction (RE-PCR) within the population of a Nevada dental school revealed disparities among minorities

BMC Oral Health

Research Article

Nicholas Freel¹  Katherine M Howard²  Karl Kingsley²  Keaton Tomlin²  Allison Findley²  Patricia Cruz³  Clifford C Seran⁴  Jay Ericksen Davis⁴ 

[1] Department of Biological Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA;Department of Biomedical Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 1001 Shadow Lane, 89106, Las Vegas, NV, USA;Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA;Orthodontic Residency Program, School of Dental Medicine, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA;

关键词: Bacteria;    Orthodontics;    Streptococcus mutans;    Porphyromonas gingivalis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6831-12-34

 received in 2012-03-12, accepted in 2012-08-01,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine recently opened an orthodontic treatment clinic to address the needs of the racially and ethnically diverse population of Southern Nevada, primarily focusing on the treatment and care of low-income and minority patients. Although orthodontic treatment and therapy has been shown to induce changes in the oral cavity, much of this evidence was collected from traditional White, teenage orthodontic clinic populations. The primary goal of this study was to describe the microbial burden of the cariogenic and periodontal pathogens, Streptococcus mutans and Porphyromonas gingivalis within the UNLV-SDM patient population.MethodsRepresentative saliva samples were collected from healthy adult patients for DNA isolation. Relative endpoint polymerase chain reaction (RE-PCR) was performed to ascertain the presence and relative microbial burden of these oral pathogens.ResultsNearly one quarter (13/56) or 23.3% of these patients had elevated levels of S. mutans, while (10/56) and 17.8% of these samples were found to have elevated levels of P. gingivalis, - with (90%) of P. gingivalis-positive samples from minority patients (X2 = 17.921, d.f. = 1; p < 0.0001).ConclusionsThese findings of elevated P. gingivalis levels, primarily among minority patients, may suggest underlying oral health practices contributing to adverse oral health conditions within this population. Oral health knowledge and practices among minority patients may be strongly influenced by other factors, including education and socioeconomic status, suggesting additional research may be needed to accurately determine the most appropriate standards for care and oral health education within this patient population.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Davis et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.