The Oxygen Tolelance of Some Strict Anaerobes from Periodontopathic Disease

Abstract

We have studied the correlation of the oxygen tolelance of strictly anaerobic bacteria which were thought to be the periodontopathic bacteria with survival and growth of the bacteria under the aerobic condition in oral cavities. Oxygen tolelance was expressed by decimal reduction time of the initial cell counts to decline to 1/10 by aeration.
The D-time was from 2 hrs to 10 hrs when the initial viable counts were 10²-10⁵ cells/plate in case of Bacteroides gingivalis, Bacteroides intermedius, Bacteroides loescheii, Bacteroides melaninogenicus and Fusobacterium nucleatum while D-time of Bacteroids fragilis which was used as the control showed the value of 18-48 hrs. Therefore, all of strains used for the experiment were weak oxygen tolelant organisms.