Abstract
Increasing lines of evidence indicate that while microbial profile might vary, community-level metabolic potential is often more stably correlated with healthy and diseased states. Here, we investigated the community-level metabolic diversity of dental plaque microbiota from caries-free (CF) and caries-affected (CA) children by measuring their sole carbon source utilization using a Biolog assay. The dietary habits of 32 CF and 31 CA children were recorded by a questionnaire. Supragingival plaque samples were collected and inoculated into Biolog AN Microplates to assess the metabolism of sole carbon sources by plaque bacteria. The results revealed significant differences in dietary habits between CF and CA children. Meanwhile, Biolog assay showed consistently higher, albeit not statistically significant, overall metabolic activity as measured by average well color development (AWCD) value in the plaque microbiota from CA group than CF group. Most importantly, the CA group had more than twice as many core-positive carbon sources (defined as being utilized by >90% of plaque microbiota from subjects within the group) as that of the CF group (31 vs. 14), including CA group-specific, cariogenic core-positive carbon sources such as sucrose, glucose and raffinose. Furthermore, CF and CA groups could be well distinguished by cluster and principle component analyses based on the types of sole carbon sources significantly differentially utilized by the two groups. Our results indicate that plaque communities associated with caries state are more metabolically versatile than those associated with healthy state, which could contribute to differential clinical caries states. Meanwhile, Biolog could be an effective tool in revealing the community-level physiological profiles of microbiota associated with different caries states.
Highlights
The prevalence of childhood caries in China has increased in recent years, developing into an alarming situation
The age at which children were no longer fed at night was significantly delayed in the CA group compared to the CF group (P < 0.05); the CA group had more children who were fed while going to sleep and throughout the night (P < 0.05)
Diet and plaque microbiota have been proposed as the key factors contributing to the caries etiology
Summary
The prevalence of childhood caries in China has increased in recent years, developing into an alarming situation. The Fourth National Oral Health Epidemiological Survey (Wang, 2018) (Du et al, 2018) reported that 50.8 and 71.9% of children developed caries by 3 and 5 years old, respectively. Increasing lines of evidence suggest that while microbial profile might vary, community-level metabolic potential is often better correlated with healthy and diseased states. Previous studies have mainly focused on the microbial community structure and metabolic pathways of a limited number of carbon sources (Campbell and Zinner, 1970; Moynihan et al, 1998; Moye et al, 2014); while the overall community level metabolic potential of plaque microbiota is less well investigated
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