Competitive selection of lactic acid bacteria that persist in the human oral cavity.

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) might offer opportunities as oral probiotics provided candidate strains persist in the mouth. After intake of a mixture of 69 LAB, strains of Lactobacillus fermentum and Lactobacillus salivarius were especially recovered. Coaggregation with other microbes is likely not a prerequisite for persistence since L. salivarius strongly coaggregated with typical oral cavity isolates, whereas L. fermentum failed to display this phenotype.