Microbial generation time during the early phases of supragingival dental plaque formation

The objective of this investigation was to determine the microbial generation time during early human supragingival plaque formation. On 2 occasions, 13 participants refrained from all oral hygiene measures for periods of 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 and 72 h. Plaque was sampled from defined areas of the teeth 13, 14, 15, 23, 24 and 25. Two independent methods were used to estimate the total number of viable cells: colony-forming units BCVF, total bacterial counts (BC) as enumerated by microscopic examination, and the percentage of vital bacteria using a vital fluorescence technique (VF) were recorded. The total number of vital microorganisms was calculated by BCVF (= BC x VF). The generation time based on either colony-forming units or BCVF increased significantly with plaque age. During the first interval (1-4 h), the microbial multiplication took slightly less than 1 h. After the establishment of a more mature plaque (24-72 h), the replicating time was between 12.5 h (BCVF) and 14.8 h (colony-forming units). It was concluded that the microbial generation time recorded at the initial stages of plaque formation is considerably lower than that found in older plaque.