Toothbrushes play an essential role in oral hygiene. However, they can be significant in microbial transmission and can increase the risk of infection, since they can serve as a reservoir for microorganisms in healthy, oral-diseased and medically ill adults. This study was conducted to evaluate toothbrush contamination in six toothbrushes donated from four people. Two participants each supplied two toothbrushes - one used in the bathroom and one used in the workplace. The other two people each donated two toothbrushes used in the workplace. Polymerase chain reaction was used to construct a 16S rRNA clone library. Sequences of cloned DNA were compared with those from the reference organisms provided by GenBank. A total 120 clones, representing 20 clones for each toothbrush, were analyzed. They are composed of six pylum, 46 genera and 79 species. The most dominant species were Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus parasanguinis and Haemophilus parainfluenzae. Enterobacter and Escherichia were recovered from toothbrushes used domestically. Toothbrushes used in the workplace did not contain Enterobacteria.

Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) is the lowest concentration of antibiotics that inhibits the visible growth of a microorganism. It has been reported that sub-MIC of antibiotics may result in morphological alterations along with biochemical and physiological changes in bacteria. The purpose of this study was to examine morphological changes of periodontal pathogens after treatment with sub-MIC antibiotics. Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Porphyromonas gingivalis were used in this study. The MIC for amoxicillin, doxycycline, metronidazole, penicillin, and tetracycline were determined by broth dilution method. The bacterial morphology was observed with bright field microscope after incubating with sub-MIC antibiotics. The length of A. actinomycetemcomitans and F. nucleatum were increased after incubation with metronidazole; penicillin and amoxicillin. P. gingivalis were increased after incubating with metronidazole and penicillin. However, F. nucleatum showed decreased length after incubation with doxycycline and tetracycline. In this study, we observed that sub-MIC antibiotics can affect the morphology of periodontal pathogens.