Oral health status in historic population: Macroscopic and metagenomic evidence

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 13; no. 5; p. e0196482
• Main Authors: Willmann, Claire, Mata, Xavier, Hanghoej, Kristian, Tonasso, Laure, Tisseyre, Lenka, Jeziorski, Céline, Cabot, Elodie, Chevet, Pierre, Crubézy, Eric, Orlando, Ludovic, Esclassan, Rémi, Thèves, Catherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 16.05.2018; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: 18th century; Actinomyces; Analysis; Anthropology; Archaeology; Autopsy; Bacteria; Biofilms; Biological anthropology; Biology and Life Sciences; Communities; Dental calculi; Dental calculus; Dental Caries - history; Dental Caries - microbiology; Dental Caries - pathology; Dental materials; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Disease; DNA; DNA damage; DNA sequencing; DNA, Ancient - isolation & purification; DNA, Bacterial - genetics; DNA, Bacterial - history; DNA, Bacterial - isolation & purification; Female; France; Funding; Gene sequencing; Genetic aspects; Genomes; Genomics; Gum disease; Health Status; History; History, 18th Century; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Male; Medicine and Health Sciences; Metagenomics; Microbial activity; Microbiota - genetics; Microorganisms; Museums; Natural history; Oral health; Oral Health - history; Oral hygiene; Paleodontology; Parvimonas micra; Pathogens; Periodontal diseases; Periodontitis - history; Periodontitis - microbiology; Periodontitis - pathology; Physical Sciences; Population studies; Preservation; Research and Analysis Methods; Rural Population - history; Rural populations; Sabatier, Paul (1854-1941); Software; Streptococcus infections; Teeth; Treponema denticola; France; Denmark; Periodontal diseases; Genomic libraries; Bacterial pathogens; Teeth; Dentition; Calculus; X-ray radiography; Streptococcus mutans
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196482

Recent developments in High-Throughput DNA sequencing (HTS) technologies and ancient DNA (aDNA) research have opened access to the characterization of the microbial communities within past populations. Most studies have, however, relied on the analysis of dental calculus as one particular material type particularly prone to the molecular preservation of ancient microbial biofilms and potential of entire teeth for microbial characterization, both of healthy communities and pathogens in ancient individuals, remains overlooked. In this study, we used shotgun sequencing to characterize the bacterial composition from historical subjects showing macroscopic evidence of oral pathologies. We first carried out a macroscopic analysis aimed at identifying carious or periodontal diseases in subjects belonging to a French rural population of the 18th century AD. We next examined radiographically six subjects showing specific, characteristic dental pathologies and applied HTS shotgun sequencing to characterize the microbial communities present in and on the dental material. The presence of Streptococcus mutans and also Rothia dentocariosa, Actinomyces viscosus, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Tannerella forsythia, Pseudoramibacter alactolyticus, Olsenella uli and Parvimonas micra was confirmed through the presence of typical signatures of post-mortem DNA damage at an average depth-of-coverage ranging from 0.5 to 7X, with a minimum of 35% (from 35 to 93%) of the positions in the genome covered at least once. Each sampled tooth showed a specific bacterial signature associated with carious or periodontal pathologies. This work demonstrates that from a healthy independent tooth, without visible macroscopic pathology, we can identify a signature of specific pathogens and deduce the oral health status of an individual.