Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Clinical Microbiology, February 2004, p. 535-541, Vol. 42, No. 2
0095-1137/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JCM.42.2.535-541.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Oromaxillofacial Infection and Immunity, College of Dentistry, Seoul National University, 28 Yongon-Dong, Chongno-Gu, Seoul 110-749, Republic of Korea
Received 28 July 2003/ Returned for modification 18 September 2003/ Accepted 31 October 2003
|
|
|---|
|
|
|---|
Several studies on the transmission of periodontopathogens have been performed by detecting identical strains between related family members. The transmission of Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans and P. gingivalis has been reported by comparing either the serotypes (15, 32) or the genotypes. The transmission rate reported thus far varies from study to study. Information on the vertical transmission of P. gingivalis had been restricted due to the difficulties in detecting this bacterium in young children by using culture methods.
A recent study used PCR to detect and investigate the transmission of P. gingivalis within extended family members (30). In that study, the presence or absence of P. gingivalis was examined in samples taken from the mesial sulcus of four family generations. These authors found that contact with an infected family member substantially increased the relative risk of colonization for spouses, children and their parents, and adults and their mothers, as well as between siblings. A method that characterizes the strains directly from clinical samples and differentiate them would be valuable for transmission studies. The direct identification of P. gingivalis present in periodontitis patient samples was performed at the strain level by an arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR) (1) or a heteroduplex analysis of the ribosomal DNA intergenic spacer region (ISR) (16, 18).
The insertion sequence (IS) elements in several bacterial species have been shown to be an excellent tools for molecular typing and an epidemiological study (6, 13, 28). IS1126 of P. gingivalis is an insertion sequence with 1,338 bp, which is flanked by 12-bp inverted repeats and generates a 5-bp target site duplication (21). It contains a single open reading frame encoding the transposase and belongs to the IS5 family of ISs based on the homology of the enzyme (20). The P. gingivalis genome harbors multiple copies of IS1126, and the value of this element as a rapid epidemiological tool for strain-specific identification of P. gingivalis has been suggested because Southern blot analysis of a number of P. gingivalis strains with IS1126 as a probe showed a unique hybridization pattern after digestion with the restriction enzymes (8, 21).
The present study describes a rapid and simple method that distinguishes the strains of P. gingivalis in subgingival plaque samples by PCR with the IS1126-specific primers that amplify the regions between the adjacent IS1126. The method was performed (i) to identify the P. gingivalis strains cultured from patient materials, (ii) to compare the multiple P. gingivalis strains cultured from the same patient, (iii) to compare the P. gingivalis isolates and plaque samples from which the isolates were obtained, and (iv) to compare the P. gingivalis strains in the different tooth sites from the same patient. Finally, the present study applied the method to a transmission study between parent-child pairs and between spouse pairs. Using this method, we were able to differentiate P. gingivalis in both forms of isolates and plaque samples at the strain-specific level. In addition, we successfully used this method to estimate the transmission rate by comparing the PCR band pattern of family members. Here we report that a PCR method with IS1126-specific primers is a very sensitive typing method and can potentially be useful for transmission studies of P. gingivalis.
|
|
|---|
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 1. Reference strains used for determining primer specificity
|
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 2. Plaque samples from 12 patients with aggressive periodontitis and their 37 P. gingivalis isolatesa
|
Subjects and sampling for the transmission study. The subjects for the transmission study were Korean patients with periodontal disease who were referred to the Department of Periodontology at the Hospital in the College of Dentistry at Seoul National University, as well as their immediate family members. A total of 30 probands and their immediate family members were selected based on the presence of P. gingivalis: 14 parent-child pairs (10 adults as a proband and their mothers and 4 mothers as a proband and their adult children), and 16 spouse pairs. The probands were diagnosed with various types of periodontal diseases, as shown in Table 3. The criteria for selecting the family members of the patient probands were as follows: the child had to be natural and had to have lived with their parents for more than 2 years at the time of sampling. The spouses had to have been married for more than 5 years. The affected sites of the probands had a probing depth of >6 mm and an attachment loss of 3 mm.
|
View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 3. Detection of the P. gingivalis genotypes in the parent-child pairs and in the spouse-spouse pairs
|
DNA isolation and PCR with IS1126-specific primers. The DNA of the reference strains, the clinical isolates of P. gingivalis, and the plaque samples was obtained by a phenol-chloroform extraction method according to standard protocols. The quantity of DNA dissolved in the TE buffer (10 mM Tris [pH 8.0], 1 mM EDTA) was estimated by measuring the optical density at 260 nm.
The specificity of the inward primers for IS1126 (Fig. 1), PI1 (5'-CCC GGC TTA TGA CGT GAT TTC TCT-3') and PI2 (5'-CTG TTG CGT TTG TGC CCT TGT GC-3'), was tested with 4 laboratory strains of P. gingivalis, along with 17 other oral bacterial strains. Thirty-seven clinical P. gingivalis isolates were also included in order to verify the specificity of the primers. The clinical samples were then subjected to PCR with the same primers to detect the P. gingivalis. All of the samples haboring this bacterium were further analyzed for genotyping. The inward primers amplified the 693-bp fragment of IS1126 (Fig. 1).
![]() View larger version (11K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 1. IS1126-specific PCR primers for P. gingivalis. The inward primer pair (PI1 and PI2) was used to amplify the IS1126 fragment of 693 bp, and the outward primer pair (PI1RC and PI2RC) was used to amplify the gene fragments between the adjacent IS1126 elements. The nucleotide sequences of the outward primers, PI1RC and PI2RC, are reverse complementary to those of the inward primers (PI1 and PI2, respectively).
|
PCR was carried out in a total volume of 50 µl containing 1x PCR buffer, 2.5 U of Taq polymerase (TaKaRa Shuzo, Shiga, Japan), deoxynucleoside triphosphates (0.2 µM), 0.3 µM concentrations of each primer, and 100 ng of DNA. The amplifications were performed in a thermal cycler (GeneAmp PCR system 9600; Perkin-Elmer). The temperature profile selected involved 30 cycles of denaturation at 94°C for 30 s, annealing at 45°C for 30 s, and extension at 72°C for 1 min, with an initial denaturation at 94°C for 5 min and a final extension at 72°C for 5 min. The PCR products were analyzed on ethidium bromide-stained agarose gels (1.0%) and visualized by using a Las-1000 Plus luminescent image analyzer (Fuji, Tokyo, Japan). The PCR was repeated three times for all samples.
|
|
|---|
![]() View larger version (50K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 2. PCR products of four laboratory P. gingivalis strains obtained with the primer pairs PI1-PI2 (A) and PI1RC-PI2RC (B). Lanes: 1, HG564; 2, ATCC 33277; 3, A7A1; 4, ATCC 53978; M, DNA size marker.
|
![]() View larger version (94K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 3. Genotypes of the 37 P. gingivalis strains cultured from 12 patients with aggressive periodontitis (Table 2) and detected by IS1126-based PCR with the primers PI1RC and PI2RC. The numbers of patients correspond to the numbers indicated in Table 2.
|
![]() View larger version (60K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 4. Representative electropherogram showing genotypes between the plaque samples from the different tooth sites and their isolates from the same patient (P6 #11 in Table 2). DNA from the plaque samples and the isolates was extracted, and PCR was performed with the primers PI1RC/PI2RC.
|
![]() View larger version (79K): [in a new window] |
FIG. 5. Comparison of the P. gingivalis genotypes between the probands and their family members. PCR was performed with the primers PI1RC and PI2RC after the DNA was extracted from the subgingival samples. The genotypes of the nine parent-child pairs (A) and the nine spouse pairs (B) are shown. The left-hand lanes of the parent-child pairs (A) are from the parent. Lanes 1 to 6 in panel A and lanes 8 and 9 in panel B were regarded as reflecting an identical genotype between the study pairs.
|
|
|
|---|
Several methods have been used for molecular fingerprinting and typing of P. gingivalis strains. These methods include restriction endonuclease analysis (10, 27, 31), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) (8), ribotyping (27, 31), AP-PCR (1, 27, 31), multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (19), heteroduplex analysis (26), and fimA genotyping (23). The genotypic characterization of the P. gingivalis strains has revealed extensive heterogeneity. Most of these methods require a prior cultivation of the bacteria for analysis, and AP-PCR must be optimized by screening various primer sets.
IS1126 was reported in multicopies throughout the P. gingivalis genome. In the RFLP typing of the laboratory strains of P. gingivalis with IS1126 as a probe, the chromosomal DNA digests with PstI produced 25 to 35 hybridizing bands (8). In this study, IS1126 RFLP showed the strain-specific band patterns. The IS1126 RFLP of P. gingivalis has been suggested as a useful tool for strain typing, as well as an epidemiological study (8). IS fingerprint analysis was also performed for strain differentiation in the other bacteria, including Mycobacterium avium and Vibrio cholerae (6, 13). Among the periodontal pathogens, A. actinomycetemcomitans has been reported to harbor the IS element, and 27 clinical isolates of this bacterium were divided into seven groups by RFLP by using the IS200-like sequence (ISAa1) (14).
Since IS is a mobile element that translocates between or in the genome, its stability is an important factor for application to strain differentiation. Dong et al. (8) assessed the relative stability of IS1126 by comparing the RFLP patterns of the copies of the same strain from different laboratories and observed one or two band differences. Meanwhile, a one-band gain and a one-band loss was observed in W50BEI, which is a spontaneous nonpigmented, avirulent mutant, compared to the P. gingivalis strain W50 (8). The mutant had been isolated from the P. gingivalis strain W50 after 49 to 73 generations of growth in a chemostat (22). These results suggest the relative stability of IS1126, but a small change can occur through the transposition or recombination between the IS copies by some factors, particularly the age of a stock culture and the number of passages. In our study, the genotyping of P. gingivalis by PCR by using the IS1126-specific primers was carried out on 4 laboratory strains and 37 clinical isolates cultured from the 12 periodontitis patients. All of the bacteria showed individual characteristic band patterns but, in most cases, the isolates that originated from the same patient showed identical patterns. However, a one-band difference was observed in some isolates from the same patient. The PCR patterns of the isolates and the plaque samples from which the isolates were cultured were also compared. Almost identical patterns were detected. Furthermore, the band pattern between the plaque samples taken from the different sample sites of the same patient was the same. These results show that periodontitis patients appear to harbor the P. gingivalis strains of a single genotype, when they are analyzed by using the IS1126-specific primers, which detected the size and the number of the adjacent IS1126 by PCR. This result made the comparison of genotypes between the plaque samples from family members and thus interpretation of the analysis easier. It has been reported that most infected people harbor only a single genotype of P. gingivalis with detection rates ranging from 61 to 90% (2, 18, 27).
The transmission of the periodontal pathogens has been studied mostly in A. actinomycetemcomitans and P. gingivalis. The intrafamilial transmission of these bacteria may in part explain the familial tendency of periodontitis and may have important prophylactic and treatment implications. The vertical transmission (parent-child transmission) rate of A. actinomycetemcomitans varied from 0 to 60%, and the horizontal transmission rate between siblings or between spouses ranged from 14 to 60% (2, 11, 25, 29). In P. gingivalis, interspousal transmission was detected in 20 to 75% of cases by AP-PCR or a heteroduplex analysis of the ribosomal ISR. However, transmission from parent to child appeared to be uncommon (2, 31). Nevertheless, the finding that concordance in the colonization of P. gingivalis was frequently observed for children and their mothers by detecting the presence of P. gingivalis by PCR assay may implicate the vertical transmission of this bacterium (30, 33). In this context, information on the stability of the colonization with P. gingivalis in children could help in selecting the subjects' age for a vertical transmission study. Lamell et al. (16) reported a positive relationship between increasing age and persistent colonization with P. gingivalis by heteroduplex analysis of ribosomal ISR. According to those results, P. gingivalis appeared to colonize only transiently in children and was more stable in the late teenage years. In our study, the age of the "children" involved in parent-child transmission ranged from 19 to 37 years. Although the sample size was small, these results showed that the majority (11 of 14) of parent-child pairs had an identical P. gingivalis genotype. The high vertical transmission rate of P. gingivalis in our study relied upon the selection of the older children. The transmission rate may be also influenced by the detection methods, the size of the family, their daily habits, and the living conditions, as well as the geographic location and the ethnicity of the study population. Interspousal transmission rate in our study is within the rage of the rate reported in other studies (2, 30).
In summary, IS1126-based PCR of P. gingivalis resulted in the production of two to seven amplicons, which gave unique electrophoretic patterns in each strain. Repeated assays with the same samples revealed reproducible data. This method showed a one-step fingerprinting process from the plaque samples after DNA extraction. A prior culture, cloning, or hybridization was unnecessary. Since most samples harbored a single unique genotype of P. gingivalis, this method is useful particularly for a transmission study for which a highly discriminating method is required. The application of this method to a transmission study with a large sample number will provide more insight into the transmission mode of P. gingivalis.
|
|
|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»