Uncultivated Tannerella BU045 and BU063 are slim segmented filamentous rods of high prevalence but low abundance in inflammatory disease-associated dental plaques

Abstract

Uncultivated clones BU045 and BU063 and Tannerella forsythia, a 'consensus periodontal pathogen', are the closest known relatives within the genus Tannerella. They have been described to inhabit different ecological niches of the human oral cavity. In this study, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunofluorescence were combined to investigate the prevalence and abundance of BU045 and BU063 in comparison to T. forsythia in plaques from gingivitis, necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis (NUG) and chronic periodontitis. Phylotype-specific FISH probes identified BU045 and BU063 as elongated thin rods with a segmented structure. Two structurally similar and previously unknown, rare phylotypes (127 + and 997 + ) were also identified due to partial 16S rRNA sequence identity with T. forsythia. In gingivitis, NUG and periodontitis patients, BU045, BU063, 127 + , 997 + and T. forsythia were detected with prevalences of 50/83/71/14 and 81 %, 100/100/86/17 and 53 %, and 100/100/12/0 and 100 %, respectively. Supragingivally, colonization density of all five organisms was generally low, rarely exceeding 0.1 % of the total biota. In periodontal pocket samples, however, cell numbers of T. forsythia, but not of the uncultivable phylotypes, were greatly elevated. Our data demonstrate that Tannerella phylotypes BU045, BU063, 127 + and 997 + consist of long slim rods with segments, which, with respect to FISH stainability, often behaved as independent units. The phylotypes are frequent but low-level colonizers of various periodontal disease-associated plaques. Their apparent inability to proliferate to high density seems to exclude any relevance for the pathogenesis of periodontal diseases. INTRODUCTIONRelying on comprehensive culture analyses, Moore & Moore (1994) estimated that, on a population basis, the human oral cavity might harbour some 500 bacterial species. With the emergence of culture-independent methods for the identification of microbial biota (see Amann et al., 1995 for a review) it became clear that probably less than 50 % of the oral taxa have been cultured so far (Wilson et al., 1997). During the last decade hundreds of previously unknown phylotypes and clones have been identified in studies investigating 16S rRNA diversity in different forms of dental plaque (Paster et al., 2001(Paster et al., , 2002Munson et al., 2004;Aas et al., 2005;Kumar et al., 2005;de Lillo et al., 2006). Among the many uncultivable human oral phylotypes two clones with an apparently supragingival habitat, BU045 and BU063, attracted some interest, because their 16S rRNA gene sequence groups them within the genus Tannerella (Paster et al., 2001;Leys et al., 2002;de Lillo et al., 2004), which otherwise contains, besides some uncultivated clones from soil, only a single species, Tannerella forsythia (also known as Tannerella forsythensis) (Tanner et al., 1986;Tanner & Izard, 2006). T. forsythia is a 'consensus periodontal pathogen ' (Haffajee & Socransky, 2006) and associated with subgingival plaque from chronic and occasionally aggress...

Correlation Network Analysis Applied to Complex Biofilm Communities

“…OT286, an uncultivated phylotype that has been frequently identified in periodontal health [24] in contrast to its close relative Tannerella forsythia , one of the most important periodontal pathogens. To try to isolate this organism we singled out species that were present at least in both clusters from healthy biofilms and if possible had a direct link to Tannerella sp.…”

First Cultivation of Health-Associated Tannerella sp. HOT-286 (BU063)

“…HOT-286 (Leys et al 2002;de Lillo et al 2004;Zuger et al 2007). Although it was reported that Tannerella sp.…”

“…HOT-286 is found in high prevalence but low abundance in periodontal disease-associated plaques (Zuger et al 2007), and the relative abundance of this phylotype is estimated to be around 0.05% of subgingival bacteria (Human Oral Microbiome Database, release 13; Beall et al 2014). Evidence from several studies has indicated that, unlike T. forsythia, Tannerella sp.…”

Vaginal and oral microbes, host genotype and preterm birth

“…Smoking increases the risk of periodontitis and levels of periodontal pathogens such as P. gingivalis and A. actinomcytemcomitans . Using 16S rRNA analysis, several species of Fusobacteria, Peptostreptococcus, Prevotella, Capnocytophaga, Eikenella and Porphyromonas are found to be distributed differently between healthy and diseased sites on teeth (105–109). There is some evidence for racial differences in periodontal pathogens; P.gingivalis and P. anaerobius were more significantly associated with black subjects in the adult periodontitis group, while F. nucleatum was associated with white subjects in both the adult periodontitis and early onset periodontitis groups (110).…”