Study Suggests Environment, Not Genetics Shapes Salivary Microbiome

Study Suggests Environment, Not Genetics Shapes Salivary Microbiome

A

team from the United Kingdom suggests environmental influences may play a

larger role in establishing an individual’s salivary microbiome than genetics. Published

in MBio, the study, “The Human

Salivary Microbiome Is Shaped by Shared Environment Rather than Genetics:

Evidence From a Large Family of Closely Related Individuals,” offers new

insight into how this group of organisms is established, and which factors are chiefly

responsible for the microbial mix that plays a central role in oral and systemic

health. 

The

researchers sequenced the bacterial DNA signatures in saliva samples from 157

Ashkenazi Jewish family members living in households in four cities on three

continents, plus 27 unrelated Ashkenazi Jewish controls. They found the core salivary microbiome

across all samples to be made up of microbes from the genera Streptococcus, Rothia, Neisseria, and Prevotella. Using statistical methods to

compare factors, such as shared household and genetic relatedness to determine

which elements are responsible for the most variation, the authors identified

household as the factor that determined who shared the most similar salivary

microbiomes.

According to the

study, spouses, parents, and children younger than 10 living in the same

household had the most similar salivary microbiomes. “These results support

the concept there is a consistent core microbiome conserved across global

scales, but that small-scale effects due to a shared living environment

significantly affect the composition of the microbial community,” the

researchers note.

Hygiene Connection E-Newsletter
November 2017