Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory polymicrobial dysbiotic disease caused by several bacteria including Porphyromonas gingivalis, Treponema denticola, Tannerella forsythia and Fusobacterium nucleatum. Our hypothesis is that sequential polymicrobial infection with Sg+Fn+Pg/Td/Tf collectively has a synergistic pathogenicity. Recent studies have shown that PD may play a role in the etiology of several systemic inflammatory diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerotic vascular disease (ASVD), and diabetes mellitus. To induce these diseases, the oral pathogens from gingival tissue must have gained access to the systemic circulation to infect the target organs. Detecting bacterial genomic DNA in systemic tissue can prove pathogenic dissemination in bodily circulation to internal organs.

Ten-week-old male and female C57BL/6J mice are used for bacterial infection and two groups as sham-infection. Chronic bacterial infection will be done. After 17 weeks of bacterial infection, mice will be euthanized, blood and tissues (heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidney, brain) collected & stored in RNA. A small aliquot of each tissue will be homogenized. Total DNA will be extracted from the heart, liver, kidney, spleen, and lungs and PCR will be done. The products resulting from PCR will then be separated using gel electrophoresis and the bands will be visualized to determine presence of bacterial genomic DNA.