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. 2012:2:215.
doi: 10.1038/srep00215. Epub 2012 Jan 9.

Discrimination of the oral microbiota associated with high hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan production

Toru Takeshita  1 , Nao Suzuki, Yoshio Nakano, Masaki Yasui, Masahiro Yoneda, Yoshihiro Shimazaki, Takao Hirofuji, Yoshihisa Yamashita
Affiliations

Discrimination of the oral microbiota associated with high hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan production

Toru Takeshita et al. Sci Rep. 2012.

Abstract

Both hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and methyl mercaptan (CH(3)SH) are frequently detected in large amounts in malodorous mouth air. We investigated the bacterial composition of saliva of 30 subjects with severe oral malodor exhibiting extreme CH(3)SH/H(2)S ratios (high H(2)S but low CH(3)SH concentrations, n 5 14; high CH(3)SH but low H2S concentrations, n 5 16) and 13 subjects without malodor, using barcoded pyrosequencing analysis of the 16S rRNA gene. Phylogenetic community analysis with the UniFrac distance metric revealed a distinct bacterial community structure in each malodor group. The H2S group showed higher proportions of the genera Neisseria, Fusobacterium, Porphyromonas and SR1 than the other two groups, whereas the CH(3)SH group had higher proportions of the genera Prevotella, Veillonella,Atopobium, Megasphaera, and Selenomonas. Our results suggested that distinct bacterial populations in the oral microbiota are involved in production of high levels of H2S and CH3SH in the oral cavity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and methyl mercaptan (CH3SH) distribution in mouth air of 240 subjects in our previous study.
Subjects with low VSC in mouth air (•, H2S ≤ 0.075 ppm and CH3SH = 0 ppm, n = 13), those with high H2S but low CH3SH concentrations (∇, H2S ≥ 1 ppm and CH3SH/H2S < 0.6, n = 14), and those with high CH3SH but low H2S concentrations (▴, CH3SH ≥ 0.5 ppm and CH3SH/H2S ≥ 1.0, n = 16) were enrolled in this study. The other subjects shown as gray circles were excluded from the present study.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) plot showing similarity of composition of 43 salivary microbiotas.
Plots were generated using unweighted (A) and weighted (B) versions of the Unifrac distance metric. The two components explained 15.9 and 71.7% of the variance, respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3. The relative abundances of phyla in the salivary microbiota of 43 subjects (mean ± SD).
Significant differences between groups were evaluated by Steel-Dwass test. **P < 0.01, *P < 0.05.
Figure 4
Figure 4. The mean abundances of bacterial genera in the no-odor, H2S, and CH3SH groups, respectively.
Only the 11 genera detected in each subject are shown.
Figure 5
Figure 5. The relative abundances of 19 bacterial genera that differed significantly between groups.
Statistical differences were evaluated using a Steel-Dwass multiple comparison test (P < 0.05). aSignificant difference between the CH3SH and no-odor groups. bSignificant difference between the H2S and no-odor groups. cSignificant difference between the CH3SH and H2S groups.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Relative abundance distribution of 77 oral taxon (OT) or operational taxonomic units (OTU) that were significantly more abundant in the malodor groups (n = 30) than in the no-odor group (n = 13), evaluated by Wilcoxon rank-sum test (P < 0.05).
To show the distribution of the OT or OTU with lower abundance, the relative abundances of each OT or OTU were normalized to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1 (z-score normalization) and represented as the color intensity of each grid (blue, low abundance; red, high abundance). The OT and OTU were ordered according to the Z statistic (shown as a bar plot on the left) in a Wilcoxon rank-sum test comparing the CH3SH (n = 16) and H2S (n = 14) groups. The direction of horizontal bars indicates greater predominance in the H2S than the CH3SH group (left) and in the CH3SH than the H2S group (right). The red and blue bars show significant differences between the two malodor groups.
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