The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an improved microbial detection system for clinical analyses. In particular, the new technique should be fast, accurate, reliable, specific, and sensitive. Monoclonal antibodies were chosen as probes because of their exquisite specificity and essentially unlimited availabilty. Techniques using probes will be important for the further evaluation of the etiological significance of organisms implicated in periodontal diseases. They also should be of value in investigations of other related topics, such as epidemiological studies, studies of bacterial virulence, and studies of specific organisms' colonization of the oral cavity. During the last five years a number of studies have demonstrated that both immunological and nucleic acid probes enable the direct quantitative detection of specific microorganisms in samples from periodontal lesions. However, there were several instances in which results with probles showed only limited correspondence with culture data. This led to considerable insecurity and concern about the value of the different microbial detection techniques. These doubts were expressed in a workshop assembled to develop guidelines for studies involving the investigation of the oral microbiota. As addressed previously and in the workshop's draft results, the often insufficient documentation of background studies that should validate immunological or nucleic acid probes is a major concern. Therefore, it is the specific aim of this monograph to summarize both published and new relevant data that document the specificity of the monoclonal reagents, describe some characteristics of the detected target organisms, demonstrate the applicability of the probes to subgingival plaque analyses, and give testimony of the high reproducibility of the developed assays.
To facilite discussion, the bacterial species C. rectus, B. forsythus, P. gingivalis, P. intermedia/P. nigrescens, and A. actinomycetemcomitans to which MAbs were raised have been addressed in separate chapters with a uniform structure. Appendix A provides a brief compilation of the characteristics of the most interesting MAbs.