The Subgingival Microbiome Relationship to Periodontal Disease in Older Women

Abstract

Understanding of the oral microbiome in relation to periodontal disease in older adults is limited. The composition and diversity of the subgingival microflora and their oligotypes in health and levels of periodontal disease were investigated in this study on older postmenopausal women. The 16S rRNA gene was sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform in 1,206 women aged 53 to 81 y. Presence and severity of periodontal disease were defined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/American Academy of Periodontology criteria. Composition of the microbiome was determined by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and the abundance of taxa described by the centered log2-ratio (CLR) transformed operational taxonomic unit (OTU) values. Differences according to periodontal disease status were determined by analysis of variance with Bonferroni correction. Bacteria oligotypes associated with periodontal disease and health were determined by minimum entropy decomposition and their functions estimated in silico using PICRUSt. Prevalence of none/mild, moderate, and severe periodontal disease was 25.1%, 58.3%, and 16.6%, respectively. Alpha diversity of the microbiome differed significantly across the 3 periodontal disease categories. β-Diversity differed between no/mild and severe periodontal disease, although considerable overlap was noted. Of the 267 bacterial species identified at ≥0.02% abundance, 56 (20.9%) differed significantly in abundance according to periodontal disease status. Significant linear correlations for pocket depth and clinical attachment level with bacterial amounts were observed for several taxa. Of the taxa differing in abundance according to periodontal disease status, 53% had multiple oligotypes appearing to differ between none/mild and severe periodontal disease. Among older women, taxonomic differences in subgingival microbiome composition and diversity were observed in relation to clinical periodontal disease measures. Potential differences in bacterial subspecies (oligotypes) and their function were also identified in periodontal disease compared with health.

Subgingival microbiome and clinical periodontal status in an elderly cohort: The WHICAP ancillary study of oral health

“…However, the differences in bacterial profiles between the various periodontitis-related phenotypes observed in the present study were generally less pronounced than those earlier documented in studies of rather limited size (such as a comparison between 29 periodontally healthy individuals with 29 chronic periodontitis patients, 41 and a comparative analysis of plaque samples from 30 post-menopausal women with or without periodontitis 16 ), or those detected in a recent large study of 1,206 women aged >50 years. 47 What is in agreement with the above studies and additional publications in the literature 48,49 is the significant association between α- (Fig. 2) and β-diversity ( Fig.…”

Antibiotic Resistance of Human Periodontal Pathogen Parvimonas micra Over 10 Years

“…Placement of sustained-release devices eluting doxycycline from gels [ 44 ], or minocycline from microspheres [ 45 ], into periodontal pockets harboring doxycycline-resistant P. micra strains may similarly induce adverse microbiological shifts leading to clinical therapeutic failure, and potentially accelerate spread of antimicrobial resistance within the human microbiome. Due to the frequent presence of P. micra in periodontitis lesions [ 1 , 4 ], and its increasing resistance to doxycycline and clindamycin ( Table 1 ), empiric administration of these two drugs in human periodontal disease therapy should be discouraged. Instead, the use of antibiotics in periodontal practice should ideally be based upon microbiological analysis of subgingival biofilms and the results of in vitro antibiotic susceptibility testing [ 3 ], in addition to consideration of the patient’s clinical status, medical history, and other medications [ 16 ].…”

“…P. micra , formerly known as Peptostreptococcus micros and Micromonas micros [ 2 ], is a Gram-positive, non-motile, anaerobic coccus widely recognized as a putative pathogen in human periodontitis [ 3 ]. P. micra is significantly more abundant in severe/moderate periodontitis patients than persons with periodontal health, gingivitis, and/or mild periodontitis [ 1 , 4 ]. The organism is recognized as a member of the human periodontitis core microbiome [ 1 ], and is included in the orange complex cluster group of subgingival bacteria significantly associated with deep periodontal pockets [ 5 ].…”

Comparative In Vitro Resistance of Human Periodontal Bacterial Pathogens to Tinidazole and Four Other Antibiotics

“…Socransky et al [4], using DNA hybridization data, identified several clusters of bacteria as significantly related to various periodontal clinical conditions, with species belonging to the red and orange complex clusters most strongly associated with severe forms of periodontitis. The same red/orange complex species were also identified as part of the core subgingival microbiome of severe human periodontitis lesions in more recent studies using next generation gene sequencing [5,6]. Importantly, all red complex (Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia, and Treponema denticola), and most orange complex species (including Prevotella intermedia, Prevotella nigrescens, Parvimonas micra, and Fusobacterium nucleatum group species, but not Streptococcus constellatus or Campylobacter rectus), are obligate anaerobic microorganisms, indicative of a strong association that exists between specific anaerobic bacteria and severe periodontitis [7].…”