ABSTRACT
AIM: Periodontitis and caries are two of the most prevalent diseases to affect humans, however; the individual susceptibility to these diseases varies significantly in the population. The aim of this investigation, therefore, was to examine the influence of host genotype on the composition of health-associated supragingival and subgingival microbiomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Subgingival and supragingival plaque was collected from orally and systemically healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs. Zygosity was determined by multiplexed PCR amplification of 13 short tandem repeats. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism was used for bacterial community profiling. The number of species shared by the twin pairs as well as the similarity of the microbial communities between the twins was computed and compared using two-sample t-test RESULTS: There was no difference in the number of species shared by the twin pairs as well as the similarity of the microbial communities between the twin dyads. Age was not a modifier of genetic influence on these microbial parameters. There was no difference between monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs in the correlation between supragingival and subgingival community similarity. CONCLUSION: The contributory role of host genotype, if any, is not apparent on an established, health-associated oral microbial community.
