The oral microbiome in HIV infected individuals

The aim of this project was to compare the oral microbiome of HIV-infected individuals to that of age- and gender-matched HIV-negative individuals. A 16S rRNA gene sequencing approach by means of a Roche GS-FLX+ sequencer was used to characterise the bacterial communities of plaque and saliva from each of the study participants.The oral microbiomes of HIV-positive and -negative individuals were found to be similar overall, although there were minor but significant differences in the composition of the salivary microbiota of the two groups. In addition, the results confirmed that plaque and saliva have a differing bacterial composition.