Effects of extracellular products of a presumed gingival pathogen, the bacterium Peptostreptococcus 84H14S, on cultured human fibroblasts and HeLa cells.

Culture fluids from this microorganism, fibroblasts and HeLa cells contained potent factors which inhibited thymidine uptake in HeLa cells. The outcome of heating the culture fluid and fractionating it by gel filtration suggested that this was not due to bacterial hyaluronidase activity. Purified peptostreptococcal hyaluronidase and several commercially-available mucopolysaccharidases also did not inhibit thymidine uptake.