Characterization of Tongue Coating Microbiota in Coronary Heart Disease Patients with Greasy Coating versus Thin Coating Based on 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing

ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the distribution characteristics of oral microbiota in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) under different tongue coating types.MethodsTen CAD patients with yellow greasy coating (Group I), ten CAD patients with white greasy coating (Group J), and ten CAD patients with thin coating (Group K) were enrolled, along with nine healthy individuals as the control group (Group L). Tongue coating samples were collected from each group. Full-length 16S rRNA sequencing was employed for microbial analysis, and bioinformatics studies were conducted from the perspectives of alpha diversity, beta diversity, community structure differences, and functional prediction.