title: Quantifying dental biofilm growth using cross-polarization optical coherence tomography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Quantifying the ex vivo growth of complex multispecies dental biofilms using cross-polarization 1310-nm optical coherence tomography (CP-OCT) system was investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Bacterial microcosms, which were derived from plaque samples of paediatric subjects, were incubated in a biofilm reactor system containing discs of different dental materials for 72 h with daily sucrose pulsing (5×). CP-OCT analysis of biofilm mass was validated with crystal violet (CV) assays at various growth stages of these complex biofilms. CP-OCT was able to filter out the back-reflected signals of water layers in the hydrated biofilm and allowed for direct biofilm quantification. The overall depth-resolved scattering intensity of the biofilm showed very strong positive correlation with CV assay quantification (Spearman's ρ = 0.92) during the growth phase of the biofilm.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CP-OCT was able to quantify the mass of the biofilm by measuring the overall depth-resolved scattering of the biofilm.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  CP-OCT has the ability to nondestructively monitor biofilm growth and elucidate the growth characteristics of these microcosms on different dental material compositions.
authors.affiliation: School of Dentistry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rudney
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Aparicio
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fok
authors.forename: R S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000254:growth & development*; D001431:Bacteriological Techniques; D018441:Biofilms / Q000254:growth & development*; D019149:Bioreactors; D002648:Child; D003470:Culture Media; D003773:Dental Plaque / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media