Subgingival microbiome and clinical periodontal status in an elderly cohort: The WHICAP ancillary study of oral health

Background: There is a sparsity of data describing the periodontal microbiome in elderly individuals. We analyzed the association of subgingival bacterial profiles and clinical periodontal status in a cohort of participants in the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP).

Methods: Dentate individuals underwent a full-mouth periodontal examination at six sites/tooth. Up to four subgingival plaque samples per person, each obtained from the mesio-lingual site of the most posterior tooth in each quadrant, were harvested and pooled. Periodontal status was classified according to the Centers for Disease Control/American Academy of Periodontology (CDC/AAP) criteria as well as based on the percentage of teeth/person with pockets ≥4 mm deep. Bacterial DNA was isolated and was processed and analyzed using Human Oral Microbe Identification using Next Generation Sequencing (HOMINGS). Differential abundance across the periodontal phenotypes was calculated using the R package DESeq2. α- and β-diversity metrics were calculated using DADA2-based clustering.

Results: The mean age of the 739 participants was 74.5 years, and 32% were male. Several taxa including Sneathia amnii-like sp., Peptoniphilaceae [G-1] bacterium HMT 113, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Fretibacterium fastidiosum, Filifactor alocis, and Saccharibacteria (TM7) [G-1] bacterium HMT 346 were more abundant with increasing severity of periodontitis. In contrast, species such as Veillonella parvula, Veillonella dispar, Rothia dentocariosa, and Lautropia mirabilis were more abundant in health. Microbial diversity increased in parallel with the severity and extent of periodontitis.

Conclusions: The observed subgingival bacterial patterns in these elderly individuals corroborated corresponding findings in younger cohorts and were consistent with the concept that periodontitis is associated with perturbations in the resident microbiome.