Background: Peri‐implantitis represents a disruption of the biocompatible interface between the titanium dioxide layer of the implant surface and the peri‐implant tissues. Increasing preclinical data suggest that peri‐implantitis microbiota not only triggers an inflammatory immune response but also causes electrochemical alterations of the titanium surfaces, i.e., corrosion, that aggravate this inflammatory response. Thus, it was hypothesized that there is an association between dissolution of titanium from dental implants, which suggests corrosion, and peri‐implantitis in humans. The objective of this study is to compare levels of dissolved titanium in submucosal plaque collected from healthy implants and implants with peri‐implantitis.Methods: Submucosal plaque from 20 implants with peri‐implantitis and 20 healthy implants was collected with sterile curets from 30 participants. Levels of titanium were quantified using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and normalized for mass of bacterial DNA per sample to exclude confounding by varying amounts of plaque per site. Statistical analysis was performed using generalized estimated equations to adjust for clustering of implants per participant.Results: Implants with peri‐implantitis harbored significantly higher mean levels of titanium (0.85 ± 2.47) versus healthy implants (0.07 ± 0.19) after adjusting for amount of plaque collected per site (P = 0.033).Conclusions: Greater levels of dissolved titanium were detected in submucosal plaque around implants with peri‐implantitis compared with healthy implants, indicating an association between titanium dissolution and peri‐implantitis. Factors triggering titanium dissolution, as well as the role of titanium corrosion in the peri‐implant inflammatory process, warrant further investigation.

Developing a laboratory model of oral polymicrobial communities is essential for in vitro studies of the transition from healthy to diseased oral plaque. SHI medium is an enriched growth medium capable of supporting in vitro biofilms with similar diversity to healthy supragingival inocula; however, this medium does not maintain the diversity of gram‐negative bacteria more associated with subgingival plaque. Here, we systematically modified SHI medium components to investigate the impacts of varying nutrients and develop a medium capable of supporting a specific disease‐state subgingival community. A diseased subgingival plaque sample was inoculated in SHI medium with increasing concentrations of sucrose (0%, 0.1%, 0.5%), fetal bovine serum (FBS) (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%), and mucin (0.1, 2.5, 8.0 g/L) and grown for 48 hrs, then the 16S rRNA profiles of the resulting biofilms were examined. In total, these conditions were able to capture 89 of the 119 species and 43 of the 51 genera found in the subgingival inoculum. Interestingly, biofilms grown in high sucrose media, although dominated by acidogenic Firmicutes with a low final pH, contained several uncultured taxa from the genus Treponema, information that may aid culturing these periodontitis‐associated fastidious organisms. Biofilms grown in a modified medium (here named subSHI‐v1 medium) with 0.1% sucrose and 10% FBS had a high diversity closest to the inoculum and maintained greater proportions of many gram‐negative species of interest from the subgingival periodontal pocket (including members of the genera Prevotella and Treponema, and the Candidate Phyla Radiation phylum Saccharibacteria), and therefore best represented the disease community.