Oral bacterial community changes tied to severe dental fluorosis, Study says

The study is published in the Journal of Scientific Reports.

Dental fluorosis is a very prevalent endemic disease. Although oral microbiome has been reported to correlate with different oral diseases, there appears to be an absence of research recognizing any relationship between the severity of dental fluorosis and the oral microbiome.

Hence, Qian Wang and colleagues from the Special Key Laboratory of Oral Disease Research, Life Sciences Institute, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China carried out the study to investigate the changes in oral microbial community structure and identified bacterial species associated with moderate and severe dental fluorosis.

The authors studied a total of salivary samples of 42 individuals, assigned into Healthy (N = 9), Mild (N = 14) and Moderate/Severe (M&S, N = 19), were investigated using the V4 region of 16S rRNA gene.

The results showed that –

a. The oral microbial community structure based on Bray Curtis and Weighted Unifrac were significantly changed in the M&S group compared with both of Healthy and Mild.

b. As the predominant phyla, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes showed variation in the relative abundance among groups.

c. The Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F/B) ratio was significantly higher in the M&S group.

d. LEfSe analysis was used to identify differentially represented taxa at the species level.

e. Several genera such as Streptococcus mitis, Gemella parahaemolysans, Lactococcus lactis, and Fusobacterium nucleatum, were significantly more abundant in patients with moderate/severe dental fluorosis, while Prevotella melaninogenica and Schaalia odontolytica were enriched in the Healthy group.

Therefore, it was brought to conclusion that "oral microbiome shift in patients with moderate/severe dental fluorosis."

The authors further added that they identified several differentially represented bacterial species enriched in moderate and severe fluorosis. Findings from this study suggested that the roles of these bacteria in oral health and related diseases warrant more consideration in patients with moderate and severe fluorosis.