Abstract
The specific etiology and pathogenesis of oral lichen planus (OLP) remain elusive, and microbial dysbiosis may play an important role in OLP. We evaluated the saliva and tissue bacterial community of patients with OLP and identified the colonization of bacteria in OLP tissues. The saliva (n = 60) and tissue (n = 24) samples from OLP patients and the healthy controls were characterized by 16S rDNA gene sequencing and the bacterial signals in OLP tissues were detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) targeting the bacterial 16S rDNA gene. Results indicate that the OLP tissue microbiome was different from the microbiota of OLP saliva. Compared with the healthy controls, Capnocytophaga and Gemella were higher in OLP saliva, while Escherichia–Shigella and Megasphaera were higher in OLP tissues, whereas seven taxa, including Carnobacteriaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, and Megasphaera, were enriched in both saliva and tissues of OLP patients. Furthermore, FISH found that the average optical density (AOD) of bacteria in the lamina propria of OLP tissues was higher than that of the healthy controls, and the AOD of bacteria in OLP epithelium and lamina propria was positively correlated. These data provide a different perspective for future investigation on the OLP microbiome.
Highlights
Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a common oral mucosa disease characterized by chronic inflammation, mainly affecting the buccal mucosa, tongue, gingiva, and lower lips (Scully and Carrozzo, 2008)
The healthy controls (n = 4) and the erosive OLP (n = 4) from 32 FFPE tissue samples of 16S rDNA gene sequencing did not yield enough DNA to be detected or detectable Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) products after 40 cycles of PCR. These samples were excluded from further statistical analysis, which means that tissue samples, including four healthy controls and 20 OLP patients, were eventually analyzed
A total of 908 and 1299 Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were detected, and Good’s estimator of coverage was 99.79 and 99.94%, suggesting that the results of 16S rDNA identified by saliva and tissue libraries in this study could represent the majority of bacterial sequences in the samples
Summary
Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a common oral mucosa disease characterized by chronic inflammation, mainly affecting the buccal mucosa, tongue, gingiva, and lower lips (Scully and Carrozzo, 2008). Females between 30 and 60 years are more vulnerable to OLP, which affects 0.5–2% of the general population (Alrashdan et al, 2016; Olson et al, 2016). OLP is mainly characterized by liquefaction degeneration of epithelial basal keratinocytes and band-like layer infiltration of subepithelial lymphocytes (Olson et al, 2016). OLP has a certain malignant potential and its malignant transformation rate is 0.1–2% (Crincoli et al, 2011); the World Health Organization labeled it as a potentially malignant disorder (Tampa et al, 2018).
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