Association between dysbiotic perio-pathogens and inflammatory initiators and mediators in COVID-19 patients with diabetes

Abstract

It has been suggested that a corona virus infection is linked to chronic periodontitis (COVID-19). Our objectives were to look at the expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) in periodontal compartments containing periodontal infections to determine if ACE2 is directly or indirectly responsible for the inflammation in periodontal tissues getting worse. In this study, six non-COVID-19 periodontitis patients without diabetes served as controls, and 23 hospitalized periodontitis patients were admitted with PCR-confirmed COVID-19 with diabetes mellitus (Group 1/G1, n = 10), and without diabetes (Group 2/G2, n = 13). We evaluated the mRNA expression of ACE2, IL-6, IL-8, complement C3, and LL-37, as well as the relative proportion of Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fusobacterium nucleatum, and Veillonella parvula to represent the dysbiosis condition in periodontal microenvironment using subgingival plaque and gingival crevicular fluids (GCF) samples and quantitative real time PCR (qPCR). Every analysis was done to ascertain how they related to one another. The area under the curve (AUC) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were used to determine the sensitivity and specificity of inflammatory indicators. All the grouped patients had ACE2 detected, according to our findings, but only the G1 patients had a positive correlation (p < 0.05) between ACE2 expression and the inflammatory markers. The combination of IL-6 and C3 mRNAs was found to be 0.78 and 0.55 for the G1 group and the G2 group, respectively, based on the ROC and AUC values. According to our research, the relationship between complement C3 and IL-6 may be able to predict the degree of periodontal inflammation in COVID-19 patients who also have diabetes.