Oxygen uptake and its relation to pH in a human salivary system during fermentation of glucose

Spatially and temporally resolved metabolome of the human oral cavity

Saliva is a complex bodily fluid composed of secretions by major and minor salivary glands. Salivary glands and their secretions are known to be unevenly distributed in the human oral cavity. Moreover, saliva flow rate and composition vary across locations and time of the day. This remarkable heterogeneity of salivary secretions suggests that different subtypes of saliva fulfill different functions. By coupling a non-invasive and facile collection method with comprehensive metabolomic profiling, we investigated the spatial and temporal distributions of salivary components. We identified location-specific metabolite profiles, novel oscillating metabolites, and location-specific diurnal patterns. In summary, our study paves the way for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics and functionalities of the salivary metabolome and its integration in multi-omics studies related to oral and systemic (patho-)physiology.

A mixed-bacteria ecological approach to understanding the role of the oral bacteria in dental caries causation: an alternative to Streptococcus mutans and the specific-plaque hypothesis

For more than 100 years, investigators have tried to identify the bacteria responsible for dental caries formation and to determine whether their role is one of specificity. Frequent association of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Streptococcus mutans with caries activity gave credence to their being specific cariogens. However, dental caries occurrence in their absence, and the presence of other bacteria able to produce substantial amounts of acid from fermentable carbohydrate, provided arguments for non-specificity. In the 1940s, Stephan found that the mixed bacteria in dental plaque produced a rapid drop in pH following a sugar rinse and a slow pH return toward baseline. This response became a cornerstone of plaque and mixed-bacterial involvement in dental caries causation when Stephan showed that the pH decrease was inversely and clearly related to caries activity. Detailed examination of the pH (acid-base) metabolisms of oral pure cultures, dental plaque, and salivary sediment identified the main bacteria and metabolic processes responsible for the pH metabolism of dental plaque. It was discovered that this metabolism in different individuals, in plaque in different dentition locations within individuals, and in individuals of different levels of caries activity could be described in terms of a relatively small number of acid-base metabolic processes. This led to an overall bacterial metabolic vector concept for dental plaque, and helped unravel the bacterial involvement in the degradation of the carbohydrate and nitrogenous substrates that produce the acids and alkali that affect the pH and favor and inhibit dental caries production, respectively. A central role of oral arginolytic and non-arginolytic acidogens in the production of the Stephan pH curve was discovered. The non-arginolytics could produce only the pH fall part of this curve, whereas the arginolytics could produce both the fall and the rise. The net result of the latter was a less acidic Stephan pH curve. Both kinds of bacteria are numerous in dental plaque. By varying their ratios, we were easily able to produce Stephan pH curves indicative of different levels of caries activity. This and substantial related metabolic and microbial data indicated that it is the proportions and numbers of acid-base-producing bacteria that are at the core of dental caries activity. The elimination of S. mutans, as with a vaccine, was considered to have little chance of success in preventing dental caries in humans, since, in most cases, this would simply make more room for one or more of the many acidogens remaining. An understanding of mixed-bacterial metabolism, knowledge of how to manipulate and work with mixed bacteria, and the use of a bacterial metabolic vector approach as described in this article have led to (1) a more ecological focus for dealing with dental caries, and (2) new means of developing and evaluating anti-caries agents directed toward microbial mixtures that counter excess acid accumulation and tooth demineralization.

Stoichiometry of oxygen consumption and sugar, organic acid and amino acid utilization in salivary sediment and pure cultures of oral bacteria

In each of 23 numerically or metabolically significant oral micro-organisms, and in each of the salivary sediments of 10 humans, oxygen uptake was determined quantitatively with various sugar and organic and amino acid substrates. With relatively few exceptions, the salivary sediments rapidly consumed oxygen with the array of substrates (23) tested. On the other hand, the individual pure cultures oxidized fewer substrates and did so selectively from this menu. The observation that the Gram-positive bacteria readily used oxygen when sugar substrates were provided, but were unable to use oxygen with all but one of the organic and none of the amino acids was significant. The Gram-negative bacteria, in contrast, used oxygen poorly with the sugars but most readily with many of the organic and amino acids, was significant. Only two of the Gram-positive but most of the Gram-negative micro-organisms tested showed oxygen uptake with L(+)-lactate; the Gram-negative bacteria were also active with D(-)-lactate, formate and succinate. Propionate was also tested and showed oxygen uptake only with the Gram-negative micro-organism, Neisseria subflava; acetate showed none or almost none with all of the examined bacteria. Where oxygen consumption occurred with the various pure or mixed cultures and substrates tested, the quantities of oxygen consumed were less than theoretically possible. For example, they ranged on average in the sediment results from 1.78 mumol oxygen per mumol of L(+)-lactate catabolized to 5.17 mumol oxygen per mumol of lactose. This was consistent with substrate oxidation by the oral bacteria being less than complete as in aerobic glycolysis, and with compounds other than water and carbon dioxide (such as acetate) being prominent amongst the end-products produced. The pure-culture oxygen data and other reports from this laboratory have made it possible to propose a speculative scheme as to which bacterial species might be involved in the various metabolic pathways used when different substrates are catabolized and oxidized by the mixed bacteria in salivary sediment or dental plaque. Also, it made it possible to suggest which bacteria and substrates are likely to be involved in the oxygen depletion that enables plaque to achieve anaerobiosis.

Use of N-phenylmethazonium methosulphate oxidation of NADH in the quantification of oxygen uptake by oral bacteria under open-system conditions

Technically, open systems are more suited than closed systems for the measurement of oxygen uptake by bacteria present at high cell densities as in dental plaque. Moreover, measurements are easier to perform and can be done faster and continuously. However, quantifications is more difficult and, except for steady-state conditions, has been semiquantitative. The stoichiometric oxidation of NADH by N-phenylmethazonium methosulphate (PMS) is a reaction used here to develop a formula that overcomes this problem and makes it possible to relate quantitatively the pO2 measured easily with an oxygen electrode to the amount of oxygen utilized by respiring bacteria provided with a given amount of substrate. The approach and formula consist of the summing of (i) the oxygen decrease observed during the period of bacterial oxygen consumption and (ii) the oxygen simultaneously entering from the atmosphere. To quantify the entry component, the rate of oxygen diffusion into the mixture needed to be determined: this was done by reducing or exhausting the oxygen content of the medium in various ways and determining the rate constant of atmospheric oxygen entry. The relation between the logarithm of the oxygen concentration (determined from pO2 values using the PMS-NADH reaction) and point of time in the oxygen resaturation process proved to be linear. This enabled calculation of a diffusion rate constant, k, for use in the oxygen utilization formula. The validity of this method for quantification of oxygen use was tested by comparing oxygen consumption determined from the pO2 tracing and the derived formula to the oxygen consumed when fixed amounts of NADH are oxidized by PMS. When oxygen uptake/substrate utilization molar ratios were calculated for each of several NADH concentrations, the resulting values were almost identical. The method proved reliable over most of the oxygen concentration range possible in this system.

Bacteria in human mouths involved in the production and utilization of hydrogen peroxide

Earlier studies have demonstrated that pure cultures of oral streptococci produce hydrogen peroxide but none has found any free peroxide in dental plaque or salivary sediment despite streptococci being major components of their mixed bacterial populations. The absence of peroxide in plaque and sediment could be due to the dominance of its destruction over its formation by bacterial constituents. To identify which of the oral bacteria might be involved in such a possibility, pure cultures of 27 different oral bacteria were surveyed (as well as dental plaque and sediment) for their peroxide-forming and peroxide-removing capabilities. Peroxide production was measured for each of the pure cultures by incubation with glucose at low and high substrate concentrations (2.8 and 28.0 mM) for 4 h and with the pH kept at 7.0 by a pH-stat. Removal of hydrogen peroxide was assessed in similar experiments where peroxide at 0, 29.4, 147.2 or 294.4 mM [0, 0.1, 0.5 and 1% (w/v)] replaced the glucose. Hydrogen peroxide formation was seen with only three of the bacteria tested, Streptococcus sanguis I and II (sanguis and oralis), and Strep. mitior (mitis biotype I); levels of hydrogen peroxide between 2.2 and 9.8 mM were produced when these micro-organisms were grown aerobically and 1.1 and 3.9 mM when grown anaerobically. Earlier reports indicate that such levels were usually sufficient to inhibit the growth of many plaque bacteria. The amounts formed were similar at the two glucose levels tested, suggesting that maximum peroxide production is reached at low glucose concentration. None of the three peroxide-producing organisms was able to utilize hydrogen peroxide but five of the other 24 tested, Neisseria sicca, Haemophilus segnis, H. parainfluenzae, Actinomyces viscosus and Staphylococcus epidermidis, could readily do so, as could the mixed bacteria in salivary sediment and dental plaque, both of which contain relatively high numbers of these peroxide-utilizing micro-organisms. The ability of the bacteria in plaque and sediment to degrade hydrogen peroxide was considerable and extremely rapid; peroxide removal and usually complete within the first 15 min of the incubation even when its initial level was as high as 294.4 mM. This almost overwhelming ability to remove peroxide was confirmed when peroxide-producing and -using cultures were mixed and when each of eight salivary sediments was incubated with glucose and with peroxide at concentrations up to 294.4 mM. In the glucose incubations, no hydrogen peroxide was observed, indicating dominance of microbial peroxide removers over hydrogen peroxide producers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Salivary and metabolic factors involved in oral malodor formation

Saliva plays a central role in the formation of oral malodor. Such formation has as its basis bacterial putrefaction, the degradation of proteins, and the resulting amino acids by microorganisms. Saliva provides substrates that are readily oxidized and in the process facilitates oxygen depletion. This favors the reduced conditions conducive to production of odoriferous volatiles. At the same time, saliva is a major source of oxygen for the oral bacteria which generally is inhibitory of their formation. The pH is also critical to malodor development; acidity inhibits, whereas neutrality and alkalinity favor malodor production. Since the pH on oral mucosal surfaces where odor formation occurs is largely determined by the fermentative and putrefactive activities of the adhering bacteria, these acid-base processes are necessarily of major regulatory importance. Because oral malodor and periodontitis both involve excessive oral putrefaction, a better understanding of putrefaction could lead to more substantive methods of oral malodor treatment than exists today, as well as identifying new approaches to amelioration of the bacterial attack on the soft tissues leading to the destruction associated with periodontal disease.