Genotypic Diversity ofStreptococcus mutansin Caries-Free and Caries-Active Preschool Children

Abstract

Aim. The aim of the present paper was to evaluate the genotypic diversity of S. mutans in caries-free and caries-active preschool children in Brazil. Design. Twenty-eight preschool children were examined regarding caries experience by the dmft index. DNA from 280 isolates of S. mutans was extracted. S. mutans evaluated using to the PCR method, with primers for the glucosyltransferase gene. The genetic diversity of S. mutans isolates was analyzed by arbitrary primed-PCR (AP-PCR) reactions. The differences between the diversity genotypic and dmft/caries experience were evaluated by χ2 test and Spearman's correlation. Results. The Spearman correlation test showed a strong association between genotypic diversity and caries experience (r = 0.72; P < .001). There were more S. mutans genotypes in the group of preschool children with dental caries, compared with the caries-free group. Among the children with more than 1 genotype, 13 had dental caries (2 to 5 genotypes) and 4 were caries-free (only 2 genotypes). Conclusion. Our results support the previous findings of genetic diversity of S. mutans in preschool children being associated with dental caries. The investigation of such populations may be important for directing the development of programs for caries prevention worldwide.

Genetic Diversity and Evidence for Transmission of Streptococcus mutans by DiversiLab rep-PCR

“…No significant difference was observed between the number of genotypes and sex, which is consistent with other studies (Liu, Zou, Shang and Zhou, 2007, Pieralisi, Rodrigues, Segura, Maciel, Ferreira, Garcia and Poli-Frederico, 2010). Li and Caufield previously reported that female infants are more likely to share genotypes with their mothers than male children (Li and Caufield, 1995).…”

“…However, our finding that children with multiple genotypes were about 4.5 times more likely to have caries than children with a single genotype (Table 2) is consistent with more recent reports using AP-PCR and multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (Alaluusua and Matto, 1996, Gamboa, Chaves and Valdivieso, 2010, Napimoga, Kamiya, Rosa, Rosa, Hofling, Mattos-Graner and Goncalves, 2004, Pieralisi, Rodrigues, Segura, Maciel, Ferreira, Garcia and Poli-Frederico, 2010, Zhao, Li, Lin, Chen and Yu, 2014, Zhou, Qin, Qin and Ge, 2011). This is the first report of this association using rep-PCR and combined with the findings of the recent studies would seem to suggest that having multiple S. mutans genotypes may be an important factor in dental caries development.…”

“…The total number of children was adjusted for comparison with mothers (n=105) since not all children had mothers participating in the study and 1 child was eliminated because no S. mutans were recovered. The number of genotypes in this study was 1 −9 per child whereas others have reported that children harbor between 1–6 genotypes (Alves, Nogueira, Stipp, Pampolini, Moraes, Goncalves, Hofling, Li and Mattos-Graner, 2009, Cheon, Moser, Whiddon, Osgood, Momeni, Ruby, Cutter, Allison and Childers, 2011, Cheon, Moser, Wiener, Whiddon, Momeni, Ruby, Cutter and Childers, 2013, Domejean, Zhan, DenBesten, Stamper, Boyce and Featherstone, 2010, Liu, Zou, Shang and Zhou, 2007, Lynch, Villhauer, Warren, Marshall, Dawson, Blanchette, Phipps, Starr and Drake, 2015, Pieralisi, Rodrigues, Segura, Maciel, Ferreira, Garcia and Poli-Frederico, 2010). The average number of genotypes per child in this study was 2.7 and is notably higher than what others have reported for children (range 1.5–2.0) (Cheon, Moser, Whiddon, Osgood, Momeni, Ruby, Cutter, Allison and Childers, 2011, Cheon, Moser, Wiener, Whiddon, Momeni, Ruby, Cutter and Childers, 2013, Domejean, Zhan, DenBesten, Stamper, Boyce and Featherstone, 2010, Liu, Zou, Shang and Zhou, 2007, Lynch, Villhauer, Warren, Marshall, Dawson, Blanchette, Phipps, Starr and Drake, 2015).…”

“…This finding is significant since the presence of more genotypes in children is linked with higher caries scores possibly due to inter-species competition or augmentation. (Alaluusua and Matto, 1996, Baca, Castillo, Liebana, Castillo, Martin-Platero and Liebana, 2012, Hirose et al, 1993, Napimoga, Kamiya, Rosa, Rosa, Hofling, Mattos-Graner and Goncalves, 2004, Pieralisi, Rodrigues, Segura, Maciel, Ferreira, Garcia and Poli-Frederico, 2010, Zhao, Li, Lin, Chen and Yu, 2014)…”

“…The genetic diversity of S. mutans strains has been studied using continually evolving gel based typing methods including randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprinting (Redmo Emanuelsson et al, 2003), arbitrarily primed PCR (AP-PCR) (Baca et al, 2012, Cogulu et al, 2006, Domejean et al, 2010, Gamboa et al, 2010, Gilbert et al, 2014, Hu et al, 2014, Lembo et al, 2007, Li and Caufield, 1998, Liu et al, 2007, Lynch et al, 2015, Napimoga et al, 2004, Palmer et al, 2012, Pieralisi et al, 2010, Teanpaisan et al, 2012, Zhao et al, 2014, Zhou et al, 2011), pulse field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) (Mineyama et al, 2004, Mineyama et al, 2007, Roberts et al, 2002) and repetitive extragenic palindromic PCR (rep-PCR) (Cheon et al, 2011, Moser et al, 2010). Molecular based typing methods used to evaluate genetic diversity include multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MLEE) (Napimoga, Kamiya, Rosa, Rosa, Hofling, Mattos-Graner and Goncalves, 2004) and more recently, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) (Do et al, 2010, Lapirattanakul et al, 2008, Momeni et al, 2013, Nakano et al, 2007).…”