Functional signatures of ex-vivo dental caries onset

The etiology of dental caries remains poorly understood. With the advent of next-generation sequencing, a number of studies have focused on the microbial ecology of the disease. However, taxonomic associations with caries have not been consistent. Researchers have also pursued function-centric studi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of oral microbiology 2022-12, Vol.14 (1), p.2123624-2123624
Main Authors: Moussa, Dina G., Sharma, Ashok K., Mansour, Tamer A, Witthuhn, Bruce, Perdigão, Jorge, Rudney, Joel D., Aparicio, Conrado, Gomez, Andres
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dental caries
genomics
longitudinal model
metabolomics
Non-invasive bioimaging
Original
signatures
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Summary:The etiology of dental caries remains poorly understood. With the advent of next-generation sequencing, a number of studies have focused on the microbial ecology of the disease. However, taxonomic associations with caries have not been consistent. Researchers have also pursued function-centric studies of the caries microbial communities aiming to identify consistently conserved functional pathways. A major question is whether changes in microbiome are a cause or a consequence of the disease. Thus, there is a critical need to define conserved functional signatures at the onset of dental caries. Since it is unethical to induce carious lesions clinically, we developed an innovative longitudinal ex-vivo model integrated with the advanced non-invasive multiphoton second harmonic generation bioimaging to spot the very early signs of dental caries, combined with 16S rRNA short amplicon sequencing and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based targeted metabolomics. For the first time, we induced longitudinally monitored caries lesions validated with the scanning electron microscope. Consequently, we spotted the caries onset and, associated with it, distinguished five differentiating metabolites - Lactate, Pyruvate, Dihydroxyacetone phosphate, Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (upregulated) and Fumarate (downregulated). Those metabolites co-occurred with certain bacterial taxa; Streptococcus, Veillonella, Actinomyces, Porphyromonas, Fusobacterium, and Granulicatella, regardless of the abundance of other taxa. These findings are crucial for understanding the etiology and dynamics of dental caries, and devising targeted interventions to prevent disease progression.
ISSN:2000-2297
2000-2297
DOI:10.1080/20002297.2022.2123624