Fig 1.
Workflow of the experiment.
Table 1.
Species-specific and ubiquitous real-time PCR primers for 6 pathogens, the annealing temperature, and the limit of quantification.
Table 2.
Age, sex, and characteristics of the full mouth of the study group.
The values are the mean ± standard deviation, and the numbers of subjects are indicated.
Fig 2.
Abundance of pathogens among the subjects.
A. Counts of total bacteria among the subjects. The first bar displays the average proportion of total bacteria in the population. The other bars display the average proportion of each pathogen in one site. Each subject corresponds to a group of four stacked bars (one for each measured site). B. Relative abundance of pathogens among the subjects. Percentage of pathogen = Counts of the pathogen / Counts of the 6 pathogens. The first bar displays the average proportion of each pathogen in the population. The other bars display the average proportion of each pathogen in one site. Each subject corresponds to a group of four stacked bars (one for each measured site). Avg: Average.
Table 3.
Distribution of the pathogens according to sites and subjects.
"Positive sites" correspond to the number of sites expressing one pathogenic species or the total bacteria (TB). "Positive subjects" indicates the number of subjects expressing one pathogenic species or the total bacteria. n: total number of sites or subjects tested; Sspp: Streptococcus spp.; Sm: Streptococcus mutans; Lspp: Lactobacillus spp.; Espp: Enterococcus spp.; Ef: Enterococcus faecalis; Ca: Candida albicans.
Fig 3.
Abundance of bacterial species among the interdental sites.
A. Box plots representing, for each pathogen, the first, median, and third quartiles, from bottom to top. The first box on the left corresponds to the total bacteria (TB). TB: total bacterial load. B. Count of C. albicans according to sites.
Fig 4.
Quantification of the pathogens according to age and sex.
Total counts from each pathogen were averaged across sites in each subgroup. Error bars represent standard deviations. Comparisons: * p<0.05, by using SUDAAN 7.0 (procedures DESCRIPT and REGRESS) to account for clustering (multiple sites within the subjects).
Table 4.
Average abundance of the 6 pathogens in various subgroups.
The column labelled “TB” indicates the mean abundance of the total bacteria, whereas the other columns indicate the mean abundance of each pathogen species. Data are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation. n: number of sites; TB: total bacterial load.
Fig 5.
Quantification of the pathogens according to location and interdental spaces diameter.
Total counts of each pathogen were averaged across sites in each subgroup. Error bars represent standard deviations. Comparisons: * p<0.05, by using SUDAAN 7.0 (procedures DESCRIPT and REGRESS) to account for clustering (multiple sites within the subjects) Mx: maxillary; Md: mandibulary.
Fig 6.
Correlation plot of the abundances of the bacterial species, corrected for age, interdental space and individual-specific effects.
The pink, white, and blue squares indicate positive, zero, and negative correlations, respectively.