Oral microbiome profiling in hypertensive patients with/without chronic periodontitis: 16S rRNA sequencing of saliva samples

This project characterizes the oral microbial community structure in hypertensive patients and explores its association with chronic periodontitis. Saliva samples were collected from four cohorts:1. Healthy controls (HC, n=16)2. Chronic periodontitis patients without hypertension (P, n=18)3. Hypertensive patients without periodontitis (T, n=17)4. Patients with comorbid hypertension and periodontitis (TP, n=16)The V3-V4 hypervariable regions of bacterial 16S rRNA genes were amplified using primers 338F/806R and sequenced on Illumina NovaSeq 6000. Bioinformatics analysis was performed via QIIME2 pipeline.Key research questions:- Identify dysbiotic signatures in hypertension independent of periodontitis- Reveal shared microbial alterations between hypertension and periodontitis- Discover hypertension-associated biomarkers (e.g., Streptococcus sp. I-G5)This study provides the first evidence supporting the "oral-origin hypertension" hypothesis through comparative microbiome analysis.