Figure 2.

In vitro microcosm biofilms, seeded with dental plaque and labeled with fluorescence in situ hybridization probes. (A) When in vitro cultures are grown in a rich medium (in this case, fastidious anaerobe broth) for 7 d, the biofilm is dominated by streptococci. (B) A plaque inoculum from the same donor was used to seed an in vitro biofilm grown under the same conditions as in A, except 25% human saliva was used as the medium. A highly diverse community is present with multiple cells that are labeled with the bacterial domain probe but not any of the genus-level probes used. Scale bar = 10 µm. (Previously unpublished data from Valm lab.)