title: Saliva microbiomes distinguish caries-active from healthy human populations.
abstract: The etiology of dental caries remains elusive because of our limited understanding of the complex oral microbiomes. The current methodologies have been limited by insufficient depth and breadth of microbial sampling, paucity of data for diseased hosts particularly at the population level, inconsistency of sampled sites and the inability to distinguish the underlying microbial factors. By cross-validating 16S rRNA gene amplicon-based and whole-genome-based deep-sequencing technologies, we report the most in-depth, comprehensive and collaborated view to date of the adult saliva microbiomes in pilot populations of 19 caries-active and 26 healthy human hosts. We found that: first, saliva microbiomes in human population were featured by a vast phylogenetic diversity yet a minimal organismal core; second, caries microbiomes were significantly more variable in community structure whereas the healthy ones were relatively conserved; third, abundance changes of certain taxa such as overabundance of Prevotella Genus distinguished caries microbiota from healthy ones, and furthermore, caries-active and normal individuals carried different arrays of Prevotella species; and finally, no 'caries-specific' operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected, yet 147 OTUs were 'caries associated', that is, differentially distributed yet present in both healthy and caries-active populations. These findings underscored the necessity of species- and strain-level resolution for caries prognosis, and were consistent with the ecological hypothesis where the shifts in community structure, instead of the presence or absence of particular groups of microbes, underlie the cariogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Operative Dentistry and Endodontics, Guanghua School and Hospital of Stomatology and Institute of Stomatological Research, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Xiaowei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.forename: Kuan-Liang
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Chien-Chi
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Lo
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Dongmei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Ranran
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Xingzhi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Patrick S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Chain
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Junqi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ling
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D054892:Metagenome; D009055:Mouth / Q000382:microbiology; D010802:Phylogeny; D018720:Prevotella / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012463:Saliva / Q000382:microbiology*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S