Book Description

Certain bacteria commonly present in the normal oral flora exhibit an agglutination phenomenon or clumping of cells. The method most often employed in quantitative experiments to counteract agglutination has traditionally been that of mechanical shaking described by Jay in 1927. A newer instrument, the Vortex Genie, is now commonly used in laboratories to disperse and suspend bacterial cultures. This study sought to determine correlations between the two methods as a basis for using the Vortex Genie in Future salivary bacterial research. Bacterial assays of whole saliva specimens collected from 40 subjects were utilized as indicators for establishing correlations. The two dispersion techniques were used and specimens were plated on five different selective media as well as one enriched type medium. The strong correlation between paired plate counts for the Jay and Vortex-treated saliva samples demonstrated a practical and useful correspondence between the two methods.