Analysis of oral microbiota in Japanese oral cancer patients using 16S rRNA sequencing

• Published in: Journal of oral biosciences 2019-06, Vol.61 (2), p.120-128
• Main Authors: Takahashi, Yasuharu, Park, Jonguk, Hosomi, Koji, Yamada, Tomonori, Kobayashi, Ayaka, Yamaguchi, Yuji, Iketani, Susumu, Kunisawa, Jun, Mizuguchi, Kenji, Maeda, Nobuko, Ohshima, Tomoko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bacteria; Epidemiology; Metagenomics; Microbiota; Mouth neoplasms
• ISSN: 1349-0079
• DOI: 10.1016/j.job.2019.03.003

It is important to determine the cause of increasing oral cancer occurrence and mortality rates in Japan, because the mortality rate has recently decreased in other developed countries. The impact of microbiota in carcinogenesis, especially in the digestive tract has been reported. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between oral cancer and oral microbiota in Japanese patients. DNA was extracted from salivary samples of 60 oral cancer patients and 80 non-cancer individuals as controls. We performed metagenomic analysis using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Statistical analysis in this study was performed using R (version 3.5.0). Oral cancer patients showed higher α-diversity compared to the control group, and the β-diversity between the two groups differed significantly. Further, there was a significant difference in the abundance ratio of bacterial genera between the two groups. Peptostreptococcus, Fusobacterium, Alloprevotella, and Capnocytophaga were more abundant in the cancer group compared to the control, whereas Rothia and Haemophilus were less abundant (p