Periodontal disease parameters.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Serum IgG antibody levels from ApoE^null mice collected after 16 weeks of oral polymicrobial infection with <i>P. gingivalis</i>, <i>T. denticola,</i> and <i>T. forsythia</i> (n = 10−15). The graph shows the results for IgG antibody reactive with each of the three bacterial species. The bars indicate mean antibody levels in serum from mice infected with consortia or from controls. Significantly higher levels of IgG antibody were seen in polymicrobial-infected mice when compared to sham-infected controls. (<b>B</b>) Area of horizontal alveolar bone resorption in mandibular and maxillary palatal surfaces in ApoE^null mice. Each bar indicates the mean alveolar bone resorption for three molars in each quadrant of infected (n = 15) and sham-infected mice (n = 10). The vertical line denotes standard deviation from mean. *** Asterisks indicate significantly different (<i>P</i><0.0001) than the sham-infected controls. The IgG antibody levels are expressed as log₁₀. <i>Pg</i> indicates <i>P. gingivalis</i>; <i>Td</i> indicates <i>T. denticola</i>; <i>Tf</i> indicates <i>T. forsythia</i>; Cont indicates sham-infected control mice. <i>Pg</i>/<i>Td</i>/<i>Tf</i> indicates polymicrobial infection with <i>P. gingivalis</i>, <i>T. denticola</i> and <i>T. forsythia</i>. (<b>C, D</b>) Fluorescent <i>in situ</i> hybridization of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded right mandible section from a polymicrobial-infected mouse using Alexafluor-568 labeled 16S RNA species specific (<i>P. gingivalis, T. dentcola</i> and <i>T. forsythia</i>) oligonucleotide probes. Red fluorescence indicates the presence of bacterial 16S RNA. The white arrow in the zoomed in square points to <i>T. dentcola</i> spirochete morphotype. The white arrow heads point to <i>P. gingivalis</i> coccobacilli morphotype. (<b>E, F</b>) Representative images of maxilla and mandible palatal surfaces showing extensive interproximal intrabony defects in mice infected with <i>Pg/Td/Tf</i>. M1 indicates first molar, M2 indicates second molar and M3 indicates third molar. Black arrows indicates intrabony defects. (<b>G</b>) Sham-infected mouse mandible-palatal showing no intrabony defects.