DISSOLUTION OF TYPE-I COLLAGEN FIBRILS BY GINGIVAL FIBROBLASTS ISOLATED FROM PATIENTS OF VARIOUS PERIODONTITIS CATEGORIES

The classification of periodontitis in various disease categories, inc luding juvenile periodontitis, rapidly progressive adult periodontitis and slowly progressive adult periodontitits is based mainly on differ ences in disease progresssion and age group susceptibility. Because di ssolution of collagen fibers is an integral part of periodontal attach ment loss, we investigated whether the clinical differences among thes e periodontitis/control groups are reflected in the collagen-degrading activity of gingival fibroblasts isolated from affected tissues. All fibroblast strains isolated from the 4 groups (n=48) displayed cell-as sociated collagenolytic activity when seeded in contact with a reconst ituted film of type I collagen fibrils. Cells from the control group ( n=14) dissolved the collagen fibril film twice as fast as those from e ach of the 3 disease groups (juvenile periodontitis (n=13), rapidly pr ogressive adult periodontitis (n=7), and slowly progressive adult peri odontitits (n=14)). Both interleukin-lp and phorbolesler accelerated t he rate of dissolution 2-4-fold, but even after cytokine or phorbolest er stimulation control cells were still considerably more effective in dissolving the collagen fibrils than cells from the disease groups. T he observation made in this study, that dissolution of collagen fibril s by gingival fibroblasts from periodontally diseased individuals is s ignificantly slower than by cells from healthy control subjects, chall enges disease paradigms based on a direct relationship between collage nolytic potential and disease activity.