Table 2. Mean number and mean rank of bands according to treatments (amoxicillin/clavulanate potassium or placebo) and daily frequency of sucrose exposure (0 – no exposure; exposure – 3 or 8 times/day).

Treatment	Sucrose Exposure (times/day)	Total no. of distinct bands on DGGE	Mean no. of bands ± SD	Mean rank of bands ± SD
Amoxicillin/Clavulanate Potassium	0	41	9.91±3.24	31.79±4.30
	3	47	10.36±4.57	30.77±4.87
	8	39	8.91±2.39	30.63±3.67
Placebo	0	42	10.27±3.07	30.90±6.36
	3	47	11.36±3.59	29.42±4.90
	8	41	9.27±2.87	29.45±3.76

SD: standard deviation; n = 11.

With regard to the mean number and the mean rank of bands, no statistical significance was found either for different treatments (p>0.05; Paired T-test) or for different frequencies of sucrose exposure (p>0.05; Repeated Measures ANOVA test).

Note: Although 54 distinct bands have been detected in the DGGE profile analyses, none of the volunteers presented all of them in their profile.