Figure 6.
Cumulative mean counts (×105) of 41 bacterial species in samples taken from 55 subjects with natural teeth and from 62 subjects with full‐mouth dentures. Samples were taken before professional removal of the dental biofilms (Pre), immediately after cleaning (time 0) and after 1, 2, 4 and 7 days of redevelopment (Post). The subjects refrained from oral‐hygiene procedures for the 7‐day test period. Samples were removed before, and immediately after cleaning from the mesio‐buccal aspect of each natural tooth (excluding third molars) and from each denture tooth. In addition, samples were obtained from up to seven teeth in randomly selected quadrants at 1, 2, 4 and 7 days after tooth cleaning. All samples were individually analyzed for their content of 41 taxa using checkerboard DNA–DNA hybridization. Species counts in the samples were averaged within each subject at each time point and were then averaged across subjects in the two clinical groups. The plots present the cumulative mean values at each time point in each clinical group. The species were ordered and color‐coded according to previously described microbial complexes ( 337 ). Printed with permission from Teles et al. ( 360 ).