Microbial characteristics across different tongue coating types in a healthy population

ABSTRACT

Background The physical appearance of tongue coatings is vital for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to diagnose health and disease status. The microbiota of different tongue coatings could also influence coating formation and be further associated with specific diseases. Previous studies have focused on bacteria from different tongue coatings in the context of specific diseases, but the normal variations in healthy individuals remain unknown.Aim: We examined the tongue microbiota by metagenomics in 94 healthy individuals classified into eight different tongue types.Results: The overall composition of the tongue coating microbiome is not drastically different among different coating types, similar to the findings of previous studies in healthy populations. Further analysis revealed microbiota characteristics of each coating type, and many of the key bacteria are reported to be implicated in diseases. Moreover, further inclusion of diabetic patients revealed disease-specific enrichment of Capnocytophaga, even though the same tongue coatings were studied.Conclusions: This work revealed the characteristic compositions of distinctive tongue coatings in a healthy population, which serves as a basis for understanding the tongue coating formation mechanism and provides a valuable reference to further investigate disease-specific tongue coating bacterial markers.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant KJZD-SW-L05 to Yixin Zeng and KJZD-SW-L05-04 to Hairong Chen. We thank Dr. Bo Yu (Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for technical supports at the initiation phase of the study. We thank chief doctor Haiyan Zhao (Xinjiekou Community Health Service Center, Xicheng District, Beijing, China) for assisting in recruitment of research participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Yixin Zeng and Xiaolin Tong conceived the study. Hairong Chen, Min Li, Qingwei Li and Jun Wang designed the study. Hairong Chen and Qingwei Li performed experiments and analyzed data. Min Li and Sheng Liu recruited the diabetic population. Min Li and Chensi Yao recruited volunteers participating in the salivary flow rate experiments. Zixiong Wang, Ping Liu, Zhuoya Zhao and Fan Yang helped with the sample collection and data analysis. Jun Wang supervised the bioinformatics analysis. Hairong Chen and Qingwei Li drafted the manuscript. Hairong Chen, Jun Wang, Min Li, Xinjian Li, Xiaolin Tong and Yixin Zeng revised the MS. The authors report no conflict of interest.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.