Oral microbiome in pregnant women with periodontitis

The aim of this study was to explore the characteristics and differences of oral microbial diversity, richness, function and metabolites in pregnant patients with periodontitis and their healthy controls (HCs). Subgingival plaque samples from 29 patients and 20 HCs were performed with shotgun metagenomic sequencing and metabolomic test. Infectious and disease-related taxa Fusobacteria, Dialister, Anaeroglobus, Catonella, Peptoanaerobacter, Centipeda, Eikenella, Peptostreptococcus, Bulleidia, Solobacterium, Capnocytophaga, Leptotrichia, Parvimonas, Filifactor, Fusobacterium, Tannerella, and Porphyromonas were significantly enriched in pregnant patients with periodontitis, while Morococcus cerebrosus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, S. salivarius, S. mitis, and S. vestibularis were abundant in HCs. During the 88 significantly different metabolic pathways, only eight pathways were higher enriched in patients while other 79 pathways including polysaccharides degradation, glycolysis, TCA cycle, amino acids biosynthesis, ribonucleotides de novo biosynthesis etc. were significantly abundant in HCs. 98 microbial metabolites, including benzene and substituted derivatives, carbohydrates and its metabolites were obviously higher in HCs, whereas 384 metabolites, including alcohol and amines, amino acid and its metabolites, oxidized lipids, free fatty acids, glycerophospholipids, nucleotide and its metabolites, organic acid and its derivatives were evidently abundant in patients, these metabolites were significantly positively associated with periodontitis-enriched species such as Eubacterium nodatum, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia, Eubacterium saphenum, Filifactor alocis etc. Our integrated results revealed significant differences in the oral microbial community, metabolic pathways, and metabolites between the pregnant patients with periodontitis and HCs, providing potential biomarkers and directions for further research and intervention in the study of pregnant patients with periodontitis.