The profile of oral microbiome in Chinese elderly population associated with aging and systemic health status

The health of oral cavity is considered as an important indicator of aging. Oral microbiota is highly associated with the oral health, while the variation of oral microbiome in elderly population and characteristic microbes associated with aging remain unclear.

In this study, 130 elderly subjects were recruited and divided into 3 groups according to their age: Stage I group (65 ≤ years < 70), Stage II group (70 ≤ years < 75), and Stage III group (75 ≤ years < 80). Their physiological indices were analyzed with using Illumina MiSeq platform and the oral microbiome was determined by high-throughput sequencing.

Along with aging, the level of fasting blood glucose, systolic pressure and monocytes are significantly increased. No significant difference was detected on the whole structure of the oral microbiome among groups. While using Metastats and Spearman's correlation analysis, specific bacteria were identified as potential age- or health index-related bacterial genera including Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Porphyromonas, Aminobacter, Collinsella, Clostridium and Acinetobacter.

Our study revealed that the composition structure of salivary microbiota in elderly population was relatively stable while specific bacteria were correlated with age and health status, which is promising to be served as health indicators of the elderly after further exploration.