Noninvasive Acquisition of Oral Mucosal Epithelial miRNA and Bacteria DNA/RNA from a Single Site

Many digestive tract microbes live adhered to tract epithelium. Work in recent years has brought the realization that these microbes and the host epithelial cells certainly must interact and that this interaction has an effect on both. One way to understand the interaction is to measure which genes are expressed in the epithelial cells and what bacteria are present. Even more informative would be to also determine what genes the bacteria express. Presented is a method to noninvasively isolate oral mucosal epithelium so to provide purified miRNA that can be used to profile miRNA expression specifically in the epithelium. miRNA is a major regulator of cell functions. Simultaneously, DNA and RNA from bacteria at the same site can be isolated to allow characterization of bacteria that coat the epithelial cells and extracellular matrix. This provides insight on the interaction between host and bacteria.