Tongue microbiome in children with autism spectrum disorder.

: A few recent studies have characterized the salivary microbiome in association with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Here, we sought to assess if there is an association between the tongue microbiome and ASD. : Tongue scrapping samples were obtained from 25 children with ASD and 38 neurotypical controls. The samples were sequenced for the gene (V1-V3) and the resultant high-quality reads were assigned to the species-level using our previously described BLASTn-based algorithm. Downstream analyses of microbial profiles were conducted using QIIME, LEfSe, and R. : Independent of grouping, and accounted for > 60% of the average microbiome. and were the most abundant species. Species richness and diversity did not significantly differ between the study groups. Thirteen species and three genera were differentially abundant between the two groups, e.g. enrichment of and and depletion of and in the ASD group. However, none of them withstood adjustment for multiple comparisons. : The tongue microbiome of children with ASD was not significantly different from that of healthy control children, which is largely consistent with results from the literature.