Electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) have become prevalent as an alternative to conventional cigarette smoking and in youth. E-cigs aerosol contain unique chemicals which can alter the oral microbiome and promot dysbiosis. We expand on a study involving 84 subjects who were either conventional smokers, e-cig smokers, or nonsmokers. Clinical measures of periodontal health, proinflammatory cytokine levels, and periodontal microbial biomass were obtained from patients at baseline and follow-up visits. Clinical measures reflected the smoking habits of cohorts, with conventional smokers demonstrating more severe periodontitis and several e-cig users progressing from mild to moderate periodontitis between visits. Periodontal microbial community analysis revealed that alpha diversity increased similarly across all cohorts over time and that each cohort hosted a unique microbiome. Pathogen-containing genera positively correlated with clinical measures and inflammatory cytokines. The e-cig microbiome shared many characteristics with conventional smokers and some with nonsmokers, yet maintained a unique taxa composition. Our data suggest that e-cig use promotes a unique periodontal microbiome, appearing as an intermediate state between smoking and nonsmoking.
Alpha diversity, Beta diversity, Differential taxa indentifying
Pearson's correlation analysis
Thomas, S. C., F. Xu, S. Pushalkar, Z. Lin, N. Thakor, M. Vardhan, Z. Flaminio, A. Khodadadi-Jamayran, R. Vasconcelos, A. Akapo, E. Queiroz, M. Bederoff, M. N. Janal, Y. Guo, D. Aguallo, T. Gordon, P. M. Corby, A. R. Kamer, X. Li, D. Saxena and A. Chowdhary "Electronic Cigarette Use Promotes a Unique Periodontal Microbiome." mBio 0(0): e00075-00022.