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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, December 1999, p. 4028-4033, Vol. 37, No. 12
Departments of Pediatric
Dentistry1 and Oral
Biology,2 College of
Dentistry,3 and Division of Epidemiology
and Biometrics, School of Public Health, College of
Medicine,4 The Ohio State University, Columbus,
Ohio
Received 25 June 1999/Returned for modification 31 July
1999/Accepted 22 August 1999
To determine if there is variability in virulence among strains of
Porphyromonas gingivalis in human periodontitis, their distribution in a group of subjects with clear indicators of
periodontitis and in a healthy, age-matched control group was examined.
The presence of heteroduplex types of P. gingivalis in the
two groups was determined with a PCR-based assay. This assay relied on
detection of polymorphisms in the ribosomal internal spacer region
(ISR). ISR fragments generated by PCR with P. gingivalis-specific primers were hybridized to fragments from
reference strains, and the formation of heteroduplexes from the
hybridization of nonidentical sequences was observed by polyacrylamide
gel electrophoresis. Characteristic fingerprints from comparison with a
panel of reference strains allowed the identification of heteroduplex
types in clinical samples. One hundred thirty adults with periodontitis
and 181 controls were sampled. With this approach, 11 heteroduplex
types of P. gingivalis were detected in the population.
Sufficient numbers were available for statistical analysis of six of
these types. Heteroduplex type hW83 was found to be very strongly
associated with periodontitis (P = 0.0000), and two
additional types, h49417 and hHG1691, were also significantly
associated with disease. The remaining types, h23A4, h381, and hA7A1,
were detected more frequently in subjects with periodontitis than in
healthy subjects, but the difference was not significant. These data
indicate that virulence in human periodontitis varies among strains of
P. gingivalis, and they identify an apparently highly
virulent subgroup.
0095-1137/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Porphyromonas gingivalis Strain
Variability and Periodontitis
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Pediatric Dentistry, College of Dentistry, The Ohio State University, 305 W. 12th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. Phone: (614) 292-1150. Fax: (614)
688-3077. E-mail: griffen.1{at}osu.edu.
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