Exploring the effect of dentition, dental decay and familiality on oral health using metabolomics

Abstract

As a proof of principle, we used an untargeted global metabolic profiling of saliva to understand the biochemical processes associated with dental decay, dentition (primary and secondary tooth eruption) and familiality in a sample of 25 sibling pairs. Pairs were selected to represent four different combinations of dentition and tooth health: 1) both siblings with primary teeth and no decay (n=5); 2) both siblings with primary teeth and discordant for dental decay (n=6); 3) both siblings with primary teeth and dental decay (n=4); and 4) one sibling with primary teeth the other with mixed dentition and both with no dental decay (n=10). There was a strong effect of sibship on the metabolite profiles identified; this may reflect the effects of common genes, environment and behaviors, and shared oral microbial communities. Nested in the familial effects were associations of metabolite profile with dentition and with dental decay. Using three different analyses (Euclidean distance, hierarchical clustering and PCA using selected biochemicals) metabolite profiles of saliva from children with decayed teeth were more similar than the metabolite profiles of saliva from children with healthy (sound) teeth. Larger studies that include host behaviors, environmental factors, oral microbiota composition and structure, and host genetic predisposition are required to identify biomarkers for decay, and to estimate the relative contribution of host factors and oral microbes on risk of dental decay.

Untargeted Metabolomics Analysis of Eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) Fruit and Its Correlation to Fruit Morphologies

“…The heat map shows the metabolites that were detected in 21 eggplant accessions. Hierarchical cluster analyses (HCA), using Euclidean distance and complete linkage agglomerative methods, were carried out to measure the similarity of multivariate samples [ 13 ] and cluster the metabolomics data, respectively [ 14 ]. In the heat map, rows represent each detected metabolite, and columns represent the different eggplant accessions.…”

The effects of family, dentition, and dental caries on the salivary microbiome

“…However, we had previously conducted an untargeted metabolomics screen using saliva from 25 sibling pairs concordant and discordant for dental decay and health. 32 Although the biochemical profiles placed siblings with decay close together, sibship was more important in determining biochemical profile than the presence of decay. It appears that at least for the salivary microbiome, and current technologies, the signal of dental decay is relatively weak, and if our focus is on the etiology of caries, we will get a stronger signal by turning our attention to dental plaque.…”

The Oral Microbiome of Children: Development, Disease, and Implications Beyond Oral Health

“…Propionibacterium and Lactobacillus ) in early oral disease [71, 92, 93]. Other saliva metabolome analyses (Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry [GCMS]) on children with tooth decay highlighted a prominent role of metabolites involved in the arginine and proline metabolic pathway, and connected arginine to alkali production and hence, acid-base balance [64, 94]. …”