Corncob structures in dental plaque reveal microhabitat taxon specificity.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The human mouth is a natural laboratory for studying how bacterial communities differ across habitats. Different bacteria colonize different surfaces in the mouth-teeth, tongue dorsum, and keratinized and non-keratinized epithelia-despite the short physical distance between these habitats and their connection through saliva. We sought to determine whether more tightly defined microhabitats might have more tightly defined sets of resident bacteria. A microhabitat may be characterized, for example, as the space adjacent to a particular species of bacterium. Corncob structures of dental plaque, consisting of coccoid bacteria bound to filaments of Corynebacterium cells, present an opportunity to analyze the community structure of one such well-defined microhabitat within a c

SUBMITTER: Morillo-Lopez V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9446765 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature