Screening and Prevalence of the Novel Cariogenic Pathogen Scardovia wiggsiae among Adult Orthodontic and Non-Orthodontic Patient Saliva Samples

Orthodontic therapy in the United States has become routine among teenagers and increasing among adults. Despite these positive developments, orthodontic treatment has often been associated with changes to the oral environment, which may increase disease risk. Although numerous studies have demonstrated the causal link between Streptococcus mutans and carious lesions, more recent evidence suggest that it only constitutes part of a much larger oral microbial community. Several recent studies have demonstrated the presence of newly characterized cariogenic pathogen, the anaerobic Gram-positive bacillus Scardovia wiggsiae. This retrospective study of previously collected saliva samples originated with a convenience sample of pediatric and adult patients, previously recruited from the University of Nevada Las Vegas-School of Dental Medicine (UNLV-SDM) clinics. More than one hundred saliva samples from adult orthodontic (n=49) and non-orthodontic (n=52) patients were selected for inclusion in this study. All DNA extracted from these samples was subsequently screened using PCR, which revealed the presence of S. mutans (SM), P. gingivalis (PG), and S. wiggsiae (SW), which differed in prevalence among non-Orthodontic and Orthodontic patients. In non-orthodontic patients nearly all of the PG-positive and SW-positive samples were also SM-positive samples. However, among orthodontic patients, none of the SW-positive samples were either SM- or PG-positive. In addition, further analysis of demographic variables revealed decayed-missing-filled teeth (DMFT) score, periodontal pocket depth (PPD), age, gender, and BMI did not vary between groups, which suggest continued research in this area will be needed to elucidate these findings.