Detection of Novel Prevotella Species in Saliva of Post-Partum Women

Objectives: During the past ten years, anaerobes have confronted in wide taxonomic changes, leading to a large number of novel Prevotella species described. The present study was performed to confirm the species-level identification of presumptively identified Prevotella isolates collected from saliva of post-partum women.

Methods: A total of 454 Prevotella isolates, collected from 69 post-partum women, were examined using partial (ca. 550 bp) 16S rRNA gene sequencing and Genious 7.0 (Biomatters Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand) for the sequence editing and The Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) (National Center for Biotechnology Information, Washington, US) for comparing the sequence to the current database.

Results: The majority of the examined isolates was identified as P. melaninogenica (40.3%), while P. denticola and P. pallens each formed ca. 10% of the isolates. Of the novel Prevotella species, P. jejuni, P. histicola, and P. salivae were found in 10.4%, 6.2%, and 5.6% of the isolates, respectively. In addition, P. aurantiaca, P. nanceiencis, P. scopos, and P. shahii, and a closely related Alloprevotella rava were detected occasionally.

Conclusions: Women proved to have a heterogeneous Prevotella population in the oral cavity. Using modern identification methods, it was possible to enlighten the knowledge about the natural habitat of various novel species.