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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Microbiol. 2017 Oct 30;26(3):229–242. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2017.09.008

Figure 1. Dental plaque architecture: the EPS matrix, spatial organization and polymicrobial composition.

Figure 1

Plaque biofilm from caries-active subject (photo courtesy of Dr. Jaime A. Cury): microscopic image (inset) of plaque-biofilm showing a selected area containing bacterial cells (highlighted in orange) enmeshed in EPS (in dark blue); the image was pseudo-colored using ADOBE Photoshop software for visualization purposes (adapted from Hajishengallis et al., 2016 [19]). The middle panel shows bacterial clusters (green) surrounded by EPS matrix (red) detected in mature mixed-species oral biofilms formed in sucrose (adapted from Koo & Yamada, 2016 [5]). The right panel displays the spatial organization of human dental plaque showing multiple clusters of varying sizes containing different microbial species (adapted from Mark Welch et al., 2016 [31]).