The gut and salivary microbiomes have been widely reported to be significantly associated with a number of neurological disorders. The stability of the microbiome in the oral cavity makes it a potentially ideal sample that can be conveniently obtained for the investigation of microbiome-based pathogenesis in diseases. In the present study, we used a single-molecule long-read sequencing technique to study the distribution of the salivary microbiota in patients with pituitary adenoma (PA) and healthy individuals, as well as among four clinical phenotypes of PA. We found that the diversity of salivary microbes was more abundant in PA patients than in healthy individuals. We also observed some unique genera in different PA phenotypes. The bioinformatics-based functional predictions identified potential links between microbes and different clinical phenotypes of PA. This study improves the existing understanding of the pathogenesis of PA and may provide diagnostic and therapeutic targets for PA.
Keywords: clinical phenotype; diagnostics; pituitary adenomas; saliva microbiome.