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
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