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. 2022 Aug;49(8):768-781.
doi: 10.1111/jcpe.13644. Epub 2022 Jun 10.

Association of oral bacteria with oral hygiene habits and self-reported gingival bleeding

Randi Jacobsen Bertelsen  1   2 , Antonio Manuel Perez Barrionuevo  3 , Rajesh Shigdel  1 , Stein Atle Lie  4 , Huang Lin  5 , Francisco Gomez Real  1   6 , Tamar Ringel-Kulka  7 , Anne Nordrehaug Åstrøm  2   4 , Cecilie Svanes  3   8
Affiliations

Association of oral bacteria with oral hygiene habits and self-reported gingival bleeding

Randi Jacobsen Bertelsen et al. J Clin Periodontol. 2022 Aug.

Abstract

Aim: To describe associations of gingival bacterial composition and diversity with self-reported gingival bleeding and oral hygiene habits in a Norwegian regional-based population.

Materials and methods: We examined the microbiome composition of the gingival fluid (16S amplicon sequencing) in 484 adult participants (47% females; median age 28 years) in the Respiratory Health in Northern Europe, Spain and Australia (RHINESSA) study in Bergen, Norway. We explored bacterial diversity and abundance differences by the community periodontal index score, self-reported frequency of gingival bleeding, and oral hygiene habits.

Results: Gingival bacterial diversity increased with increasing frequency of self-reported gingival bleeding, with higher Shannon diversity index for "always" β = 0.51 and "often" β = 0.75 (p < .001) compared to "never" gingival bleeding. Frequent gingival bleeding was associated with higher abundance of several bacteria such as Porphyromonas endodontalis, Treponema denticola, and Fretibacterium spp., but lower abundance of bacteria within the gram-positive phyla Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. Flossing and rinsing with mouthwash twice daily were associated with higher total abundance of bacteria in the Proteobacteria phylum but with lower bacterial diversity compared to those who never flossed or never used mouthwash.

Conclusions: A high frequency of self-reported gingival bleeding was associated with higher bacterial diversity than found in participants reporting no gingival bleeding and with higher total abundance of known periodontal pathogens such as Porphyromonas spp., Treponema spp., and Bacteroides spp.

Keywords: bacteria; gingival bleeding; microbiome; oral hygiene; periodontal health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest for this article.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Box plots illustrating alpha‐diversity indices (Shannon, Oserved, Chao1, and Pileous evenness) across self‐reported frequency of gingival bleeding (often/always and sometimes and never/rare). Boxes represent the interquartile range (IQR) between the first and third quartiles (25th and 75th percentiles, respectively), and the horizontal line inside the box defines the median. The whiskers represent the lowest and highest values within 1.5 times the IQR from the first and third quartiles, respectively. Asterisks denote significant differences at Kruskal–Wallis test *p < .05, **p < .01, and ***p < .001; n.s, non‐significant
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) for self‐reported frequency of gingival bleeding. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance and permutational analysis of multivariate dispersion tests for between‐sample diversity (Bray–Curtis dissimilarity) for the groups: never/rarely, sometimes, and often/always gingival bleeding
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Overview of gingival bacterial genera that differ in abundance between those reported often or always bleeding from the gums compared to those reporting never or rare bleeding from the gums (reference group). The bars represent the log fold‐change and the whiskers represent the SE. The bars displayed on the right‐hand side of 0 indicate a higher abundance of the genus in the often/always category as compared to the reference group, and the bars on the left‐hand side of the 0 is the taxa that appear in lower abundance as compared to the reference group
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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