Dental Pulp as a Tool for the Retrospective Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases.

Dental pulp is a highly vascularised tissue of mesenchymal origin, located inside the tooth and naturally protected from the external environment. As with any soft tissue, dental pulp might contain microorganisms that circulate in the bloodstream. Therefore, dental pulp has been used as a tool for the detection of septicaemic infectious agents in both contemporary and ancient human and animal specimens. This chapter reviews the different methods used for the detection of microorganisms in dental pulp, most notably DNA-based methods. We propose a protocol for the use of dental pulp as a tool for the molecular detection of bloodborne microorganisms. This protocol would be useful for retrospective diagnosis of infectious diseases in palaeomicrobiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]