Chemotactic Ability of Dental Plaque upon Autologous or Heterologous Human Polymorphonuclear Leukocytes

Abstract

The chemotactic effect of pooled human plaque suspension, supernatant, and ultrafiltrate upon heterologous human PMNs was investigated using the Boyden chamber technique. It was observed that pooled plaque suspensions (20 mg/ml) were consistently chemotactic for heterologous human PMN cells. Whole plaque suspensions were most chemotactic, and the supernatant was approximately half as active, while the bacteria-free ultrafiltrate induced a negligible chemotactic response. Chemotactic assays of individual plaque suspensions were also performed. Twelve male subjects were paired according to age and PDI scores to assess whether the PMN cells of certain individuals responded differently to their autologous plaque. When comparing subjects with high or low PDI scores, there were no significant differences in the chemotactic responses. However, a trend of reduced chemotaxis was observed in most subjects with a high PDI. When the subjects were arbitrarily divided into groups with high and low plaque indices, a greater overall chemotactic response was generated by the higher plaque formers. The differences between the two groups, however, were not statistically significant.