Serum antibodies in young adult humans reactive with periodontitis associated treponemes

The present study was undertaken to determine whether young adults with generalized severe periodontitis (SP) or the more localized juvenile periodontitis (JP) have serum antibody reactive with a panel of periodontitis associated treponemes more frequently or at higher titer than a group of young adults with a healthy periodontium (HP). The human subjects consisted of 52 SPs, 47 JPs, and 52 HPs. The panel of treponemes included three strains of Treponema denticola and several strains of newly described treponemes, Treponema socranskii ss. socranskii, Treponema socranskii ss. buccale , and Treponema socranskii ss. paredis . The frequency and magnitude of serum antibody titers were determined using a sensitive radioimmunoassay. Subjects with JP were more frequently seropositive than were HP subjects to several strains of the treponemes tested (p<0.01 for Treponema socranskii ss. buccale D40PE2], Treponema denticola D3A9], and Treponema socranskii ss. paredis D28C3]). However, the most surprising result was the low level and frequent lack of antibody in SP sera reactive with these periodontitis-associated treponemes. Excluding data where only two points above the cut off were required for seropositivity, neither the frequency of seropositivity nor the magnitude of antibody titers of SP subjects exceeded those respective values for HP subjects. The frequency of seropositivity in SP subjects to T. socranskii ss. socranskii (D43BR1) was significantly depressed as compared to HP subjects (p<0.01). In short, it appeared that SP subjects either failed to mount a significant anti-treponemal antibody response or those responses were specifically suppressed.