Objectives: Among healthy people, we understand very little about the sociodemographic, lifestyle, and dental hygiene behaviours that shape their oral microbiota. This study investigates how sociodemographic, lifestyle and dental hygiene behaviours shape oral microbiota diversity and composition in an Australian population to better inform healthy oral microbiota donors for Oral Microbiota Transplantation (OMT).
Methods: The study comprised 93 healthy adults who underwent comprehensive oral examinations and questionnaires to assess their health status.
The world of microbes is diverse, but the majority of these fascinating organisms are not as famous (or perhaps infamous) as their pathogenic counterparts. Cell highlights six scientists whose work addresses some of the most fundamental questions in biology, even though their microbial models may seem a tad bit unconventional.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe high prevalence of dental caries and periodontal disease place a significant burden on society, both socially and economically. Recent advances in genomic technologies have linked both diseases to shifts in the oral microbiota - a community of >700 bacterial species that live within the mouth. The development of oral microbiome transplantation draws on the success of fecal microbiome transplantation for the treatment of gut pathologies associated with disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe taxonomic characterization of ancient microbiomes is a key step in the rapidly growing field of paleomicrobiology. While PCR amplification of the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene is a widely used technique in modern microbiota studies, this method has systematic biases when applied to ancient microbial DNA. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing has proven to be the most effective method in reconstructing taxonomic profiles of ancient dental calculus samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe prevalence of chronic, non-communicable diseases has risen sharply in recent decades, especially in industrialized countries. While several studies implicate the microbiome in this trend, few have examined the evolutionary history of industrialized microbiomes. Here we sampled 235 ancient dental calculus samples from individuals living in Great Britain (∼2200 BCE to 1853 CE), including 127 well-contextualized London adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Ancient human dental calculus is a unique, nonrenewable biological resource encapsulating key information about the diets, lifestyles, and health conditions of past individuals and populations. With compounding calls its destructive analysis, it is imperative to refine the ways in which the scientific community documents, samples, and analyzes dental calculus so as to maximize its utility to the public and scientific community.
Materials And Methods: Our research team conducted an IRB-approved survey of dental calculus researchers with diverse academic backgrounds, research foci, and analytical specializations.
Several studies have reported increased microbial diversity, or distinct microbial community compositions, in the microbiomes of Indigenous peoples around the world. However, there is a widespread failure to include Indigenous cultures and perspectives in microbiome research programmes, and ethical issues pertaining to microbiome research involving Indigenous participants have not received enough attention. We discuss the benefits and risks arising from microbiome research involving Indigenous peoples and analyse microbiome ownership as an ethical concept in this context.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEthical practices in human microbiome research have failed to keep pace with scientific advances in the field. Researchers seeking to 'preserve' microbial species associated with Indigenous groups, but absent from industrialized populations, have largely failed to include Indigenous people in knowledge co-production or benefit, perpetuating a legacy of intellectual and material extraction. We propose a framework centred on relationality among Indigenous peoples, researchers and microbes, to guide ethical microbiome research.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ethics of the scientific study of Ancestors has long been debated by archaeologists, bioanthropologists, and, more recently, ancient DNA (aDNA) researchers. This article responds to the article "Ethics of DNA research on human remains: five globally applicable guidelines" published in 2021 in by a large group of aDNA researchers and collaborators. We argue that these guidelines do not sufficiently consider the interests of community stakeholders, including descendant communities and communities with potential, but yet unestablished, ties to Ancestors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNoncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have played a critical role in shaping human evolution and societies. Despite the exceptional impact of NCDs economically and socially, little is known about the prevalence or impact of these diseases in the past as most do not leave distinguishing features on the human skeleton and are not directly associated with unique pathogens. The inability to identify NCDs in antiquity precludes researchers from investigating how changes in diet, lifestyle, and environments modulate NCD risks in specific populations and from linking evolutionary processes to modern health patterns and disparities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Preterm infants suffer higher morbidity and mortality rates compared to full-term infants, but little is known about how changes to oral and respiratory tract microbiota may impact disease development.
Methods: Here, very preterm neonates (n = 50) were selected to study oral and respiratory microbiota development during the first few months post-birth, where 26 individuals were diagnosed with BPD and/or sepsis. These infants were compared to 14 healthy full-term infants and 16 adults.
Background: Hyperlipidaemia may play a significant role in the interrelationship between type 1 diabetes (T1D) and periodontal disease. A potential mechanism that links these three aspects together is the oral microbiota. We wanted to determine if there is an association between hyperlipidaemia, periodontal disease, and the oral microbiota of children with T1D, as this has not yet been explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is known that the bacterial gut microbiome is altered in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but far less is known about the role of eukaryotic microorganisms in IBD. While eukaryotes are rarer than bacteria within the gastrointestinal environment, the current literature suggests that they may also be implicated in IBD. In our study, we characterized these often-neglected eukaryotic microbial communities by identifying fungi and protozoa in published shotgun stool metagenomes from 355 people with IBD (206 with Crohn's disease, 126 with ulcerative colitis, and 23 with IBD-unclassified) and 471 unaffected healthy individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders (hereafter respectfully referred to as Indigenous Australians) experience a high burden of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Increased NCD risk is linked to oral diseases mediated by the oral microbiota, a microbial community influenced by both vertical transmission and lifestyle factors. As an initial step towards understanding the oral microbiota as a factor in Indigenous health, we present the first investigation of oral microbiota in Indigenous Australian adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHigh Throughput DNA Sequencing (HTS) revolutionized the field of paleomicrobiology, leading to an explosive growth of microbial ancient DNA (aDNA) studies, especially from environmental samples. However, aDNA studies that examine environmental microbes routinely fail to authenticate aDNA, examine laboratory and environmental contamination, and control for biases introduced during sample processing. Here, we surveyed the available literature for environmental aDNA projects—from sample collection to data analysis—and assessed previous methodologies and approaches used in the published microbial aDNA studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOur systematic review aimed to evaluate the effect of periodontal interventions on the diversity and composition of periodontal microbiota assessed by high throughput sequencing (HTS) metagenomics analysis. An electronic search was conducted from database inception to November 2021. All clinical trials that evaluated the effect of periodontal interventions on the gingival microbiota through HTS were selected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCreating biodiverse urban habitat has been proposed, with growing empirical support, as an intervention for increasing human microbial diversity and reducing associated diseases. However, ecological understanding of urban biodiversity interventions on human skin microbiota remains limited. Here, we experimentally test the hypotheses that disturbed skin microbiota recover better in outdoor schoolyard environments and that greater biodiversity provides a greater response.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the 21st century, neuropsychiatric disorders (NPDs) are on the rise, yet the causal mechanisms behind this global epidemic remain poorly understood. A key to these unknowns may lie within the vast communities of bacteria, fungi, and viruses in the body (microbiota), which are intimately linked with health and disease. NPDs were recently shown to be connected to gut microbiota, which can communicate with and influence the brain through the Gut-Brain-Axis (GBA).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVegetation complexity is potentially important for urban green space designs aimed at fostering microbial biodiversity to benefit human health. Exposure to urban microbial biodiversity may influence human health outcomes via immune training and regulation. In this context, improving human exposure to microbiota via biodiversity-centric urban green space designs is an underused opportunity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe gut microbiome has been implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Studies suggest that the IBD gut microbiome is less diverse than that of the unaffected population, a phenomenon often referred to as dysbiosis. However, these studies have heavily focused on bacteria, while other intestinal microorganisms-fungi, protozoa, and bacteriophages-have been neglected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAustralian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children experience unacceptably high rates of dental caries compared to their non-Indigenous Australian counterparts. Dental caries significantly impacts the quality of life of children and their families, particularly in remote communities. While many socioeconomic and lifestyle factors impact caries risk, the central role of the oral microbiota in mediating dental caries has not been extensively investigated in these communities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Oral microbiome transplantation (OMT) is a novel concept of introducing health-associated oral microbiota into the oral cavity of a diseased patient. The premise is to reverse the state of oral dysbiosis, and restore the ecological balance to maintain a stable homeostasis with the host immune system. This study will assess the effectiveness, feasibility, and safety of OMT using an interdisciplinary approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMacropod progressive periodontal disease (MPPD) is a necrotizing, polymicrobial, inflammatory disease commonly diagnosed in captive macropods. MPPD is characterized by gingivitis associated with dental plaque formation, which progresses to periodontitis and then to osteomyelitis of the mandible or maxilla. However, the underlying microbial causes of this disease remain poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe alpine area of the Australian mainland is highly sensitive to climate and environmental change, and potentially vulnerable to ecosystem tipping points. Over the next two decades the Australian alpine region is predicted to experience temperature increases of at least 1 °C, coupled with a substantial decrease in snow cover. Extending the short instrumental record in these regions is imperative to put future change into context, and potentially provide analogues of warming.
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