Background: An association between race/ethnicity and the composition of the subgingival microbiota has been found in chronic periodontitis. A study was undertaken to determine the characteristics of the subgingival microbiota of chronic periodontitis in Chileans residing in Santiago.
Methods: Twenty-six subjects (mean age 45 +/- 7 years) with chronic periodontitis, mean probing depth (PD) 2.63 +/- 0.5 mm, mean attachment level (AL) 3.70 +/- 0.77 mm, and without a history of periodontal therapy were selected. Measurements of PD, AL, bleeding on probing, and plaque accumulation were recorded at six sites per tooth. Subgingival plaque samples were taken from the mesial aspect of every tooth and evaluated for the presence, levels, and proportions of 40 bacterial taxa using whole genomic DNA probes and checkerboard DNA-DNA hybridization. The microbial data of the Chileans were compared with data from 115 chronic periodontitis patients from Boston, Massachusetts. Since several clinical and demographic parameters differed between the two populations, significance of differences for each species was determined using analysis of covariance, adjusting for age, plaque level, mean PD, gender, and smoking status.
Results: Each of the individual test species was present in at least 25 of the 26 subjects, and 12 subjects (46.1%) harbored all 40 test species. With the exception of Prevotella intermedia, all test species colonized more than 75% of sites, and 25 species colonized > or = 90% of sites including the co-colonizing species of advanced periodontal lesions, termed the red complex, composed of the three species Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythensis (formerly Bacteroides forsythus), and Treponema denticola as well as Fusobacterium nucleatum subspecies, Campylobacter rectus, Peptostreptococcus micros, and Treponerma socranskii. Sixteen of the 40 species differed significantly between Chilean and U.S. subjects. Red, yellow, and other complexes were significantly higher in the Chileans, while the Actinomyces were higher in the U.S. subjects.
Conclusions: The composition of the subgingival plaque differs among different subject populations. Thus, care should be taken when extrapolating the findings of one study to different ethnic groups.