MOLECULAR INSIGHTS INTO DYSBIOSIS OF THE ORAL MICROBIOME IN XEROSTOMIC PATIENTS: A MULTI-OMICS ASSESSMENT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71000/7v2yek97Keywords:
Xerostomia, Oral microbiome Oral microbiome, Dysbiosis, Multi-omics, Metagenomics, SalivaAbstract
Objective: The use of multi-omics in investigating the changes in the oral microbiome in relation to xerostomia and assessing the molecular evidence of microbial dysbiosis.
Methods: This is a prospective observational study that was carried out in a tertiary care teaching hospital Federal PGMI Lahore during the period of October 2023 to March 2024. One hundred and fifty adult subjects were recruited and there were xerostomics and non-xerostomics. The rate of unstimulated salivary flow was recorded at 24 h after recruitment and the saliva samples were collected in order to profile the microbiome. The metagenomic sequencing evaluated the microbial diversity and taxonomic composition whereas the targeted metabolomic and proteomic analyses verified the functional and inflammatory signatures. The clinical assessment and the salivary flow rate were used to draw a line between xerostomia and control groups. The correlation analysis and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to study the associations between microbial diversity indices, key taxa abundance, and molecular markers. The p-value of 0.05 was regarded as statistically significant.
Results: Patients with xerostomia had much lower microbial diversity and a specific change in oral compositions of microorganisms than did controls. Opponents and acidogenic bacteria were found in relatively high number in xerostomia compared to commensal taxa (p < 0.001). Integration of multi-omics demonstrated that there were increased levels of inflammatory metabolites and distorted salivary proteinicity in xerostomic people. Dysbiosis indices were found to correlate with low rates of salivary flow and the severity of the symptoms. Combined multi-omics signatures performed poorly when assessed using ROC analysis, with a value of 1.00 indicating good performance at 12.5724 and a sensitivity at 79.5 and specificity at 75.0 (P = 0.05) (Azvi et al., 2015).
Conclusion: Xerostomia is connected to severe dental dysbiosis of microbiome in which taxonomic and functional changes exist. Multi-omics profiling offers a sound molecular platform on the interpretation of microbial variations relating to the disease and can be effective in predicting and managing early and specific xerostomia induced oral complications. More multicenter researches should be conducted to confirm such biomarkers and determine their applications in clinical settings.
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