"What's SUPP" developing an in vitro model for healthy oral biofilms

Human supragingival plaque (SUPP) is a polymicrobial biofilm whose contents undergo dysbiotic transitions during multiple oral diseases. The study of healthy SUPP may lead to future pro or prebiotic therapies, to help prevent or revert dysbiosis during disease. However, many oral plaque models focus on the cultivation of oral pathogens and do not well cultivate commensal SUPP populations. Here, we use a 16S microbiome guided iterative approach to develop a low-cost high sample number SUPP model. Our model demonstrates several findings including a surprisingly minimal impact on salivary preparation methods on model microbiota and the ability to test microbial interactions with added oral strains to assess their fitness. This model provides a reductionist system for the study of healthy oral commensals in a complex polymicrobial framework in the absence of host immune responses.