Comparing the bacterial diversity of acute and chronic dental root canal infections - PubMed (original) (raw)

Comparative Study

Comparing the bacterial diversity of acute and chronic dental root canal infections

Adriana L Santos et al. PLoS One. 2011.

Abstract

This study performed barcoded multiplex pyrosequencing with a 454 FLX instrument to compare the microbiota of dental root canal infections associated with acute (symptomatic) or chronic (asymptomatic) apical periodontitis. Analysis of samples from 9 acute abscesses and 8 chronic infections yielded partial 16S rRNA gene sequences that were taxonomically classified into 916 bacterial species-level operational taxonomic units (OTUs) (at 3% divergence) belonging to 67 genera and 13 phyla. The most abundant phyla in acute infections were Firmicutes (52%), Fusobacteria (17%) and Bacteroidetes (13%), while in chronic infections the dominant were Firmicutes (59%), Bacteroidetes (14%) and Actinobacteria (10%). Members of Fusobacteria were much more prevalent in acute (89%) than in chronic cases (50%). The most abundant/prevalent genera in acute infections were Fusobacterium and Parvimonas. Twenty genera were exclusively detected in acute infections and 18 in chronic infections. Only 18% (n = 165) of the OTUs at 3% divergence were shared by acute and chronic infections. Diversity and richness estimators revealed that acute infections were significantly more diverse than chronic infections. Although a high interindividual variation in bacterial communities was observed, many samples tended to group together according to the type of infection (acute or chronic). This study is one of the most comprehensive in-deep comparisons of the microbiota associated with acute and chronic dental root canal infections and highlights the role of diverse polymicrobial communities as the unit of pathogenicity in acute infections. The overall diversity of endodontic infections as revealed by the pyrosequencing technique was much higher than previously reported for endodontic infections.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1. Relative abundance of the different bacterial phyla in acute and chronic dental root canal infections.

A, overall data. B, data according to the clinical condition. Phylogenetic classification was based on Ribosomal Database Project Classifier analyses.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Prevalence of the different genera detected in samples from acute and chronic dental infections.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Venn diagram for overlap between observed OTUs at 3% divergence in acute and chronic dental root canal infections.

The number of OTUs exclusively found in acute samples was 486 and in chronic samples was 265. The number of OTUs shared between acute and chronic infections was 165. Percentage of shared OTUs was 18%. Data are also represented by the phyla which the detected OTUs belong to. Data regarding genera are shown as supplementary material.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Cluster (A) and PCoA (B) analyses of acute (symptomatic) and chronic (asymptomatic) dental root canal infections.

Although a high interindividual variability can be observed, some samples tended to group together according to the type of infection.

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