Tongue coating microbiome composition reflects disease severity in patients with COVID-19 in Nanjing, China

Zongdan Jiang; Lu Yang; Xuetian Qian; Kunhan Su; Yuzhen Huang; Yi Qu; Zhenyu Zhang; Wanli Liu

doi:10.1080/20002297.2023.2236429

Tongue coating microbiome composition reflects disease severity in patients with COVID-19 in Nanjing, China

J Oral Microbiol. 2023 Jul 19;15(1):2236429. doi: 10.1080/20002297.2023.2236429. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zongdan Jiang¹, Lu Yang², Xuetian Qian¹, Kunhan Su², Yuzhen Huang², Yi Qu¹, Zhenyu Zhang¹, Wanli Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gastroenterology, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
² Department of Gastroenterology, Nanjing Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medical Hospital, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

Our purpose is to investigate the relationship between the microbiota of patients' tongue coating microbiota and the severity of COVID-19, and to identify the severity of COVID-19 patients' condition as early as possible. The participants were categorized into three groups: healthy controls (Con group) consisting of 37 individuals, patients with mild to moderate symptoms (M group) comprising 49 individuals, and patients with severe and critical symptoms (S-C group) consisting of 44 individuals. We collected oral swabs from all participants and performed 16S rRNA gene sequencing to analyze the microbiome. The α and β diversity differences were assessed respectively. Additionally, we employed the Linear Discriminant Analysis Effect Size (LEfSe) analysis to evaluate taxonomic differences among the three groups. Our findings revealed a significantly higher richness of tongue coating microbiota in both the S-C group and M group compared to the Con group. When compared with Con group, decreased Prevotella, Neisseria, Fusobacterium and Alloprevotella, and over-expressed Streptococcus and Rothia in M and S-C group were identified. LEfSe analysis indicated a greater abundance of Pseudomonas, Acinetbacter, Lactobacillus, Corynebacterium, Rothia in S-C group. Our study suggests a potential association between tongue coating microbiome and the severity of COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; characterization; oral microbiota; severity; tongue coating.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by Nanjing soft science Research Program (202206029). This work also was supported by Nanjing Science and Technology Information Research Institute Project (NJKJZX2022A002).