MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF MICROFLORA ASSOCIATED WITH DENTOALVEOLAR ABSCESSES

The microflora associated with three dentoalveolar abscesses was deter mined by cultural and molecular methods. 16S rRNA genes were randomly amplified by means of conserved eubacterial primers and cloned. Restri ction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the clones and amplifie d genes encoding 16S rRNA from the cultured bacteria was used to detec t putative unculturable bacteria. Clones representative of five predom inant groups of uncultured organisms were sequenced. Two were identifi ed as Porphyromonas gingivalis and Prevotella oris, and one was found to be closely related to Peptostreptococcus micros. The remaining two clones did not correspond to known, previously sequenced organisms. On e was related to Zoogloea ramigera, a species of aerobic waterborne or ganisms, while the other was distantly related to the genus Prevotella . This study has demonstrated the possibility of the characterization of microflora associated with human infection by molecular methods wit hout the inherent biases of culture.