TY - JOUR
T1 - The Impact of Mouthwash on the Oropharyngeal Microbiota of Men Who Have Sex with Men
T2 - a Substudy of the OMEGA Trial
AU - Plummer, Erica L.
AU - Maddaford, Kate
AU - Murray, Gerald L.
AU - Fairley, Christopher K.
AU - Pasricha, Shivani
AU - Mu, Andre
AU - Bradshaw, Catriona S.
AU - Williamson, Deborah A.
AU - Chow, Eric P.F.
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was funded by a project grant from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC; GNT1122514). E.P.F.C. and D.A.W. are supported by an Australian NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator Grants (GNT1172873 and GNT1174555, respectively). C.K.F. and C.S.B. are supported by Australian NHMRC Leadership Investigator Grants (GNT1172900 and GNT1173361, respectively). A.M. is supported by a NOMIS Foundation Fellowship. We thank study participants and staff at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre recruitment site: Sandra Walker, Tiffany Phillips, Alison Clough, Lucy Beaton, Sabrina Trumpour, Mark Chung, Afrizal Afrizal, Jun kit Sze, Ria Fortune, Trish Wakefield, Suzanne Amisano, Helen Henzell, Karen Berzins, Stephen Rowles, Anna Morton, Mark Thompson, Caroline Cittarelli, Surbhi Bird, Luke Mitchell, Susan Rose, and Lauren Bryar. We thank Nicole Isles from Doherty Applied Microbial Genomics for technical support.
Funding Information:
The authors declare a conflict of interest. C.S.B. and G.L.M. report funding from SpeeDx unrelated to this study. E.P.F.C. reports funding from Gilead Sciences and World Health Organization unrelated to this study. E.P.F.C. has received honoraria from Gilead Sciences and Merck Sharp & Dohme unrelated to this study. The other authors declare no competing interests. Received 29 September 2021 Accepted 9 December 2021 Published 12 January 2022
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Plummer et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Mouthwash is a commonly used product and has been proposed as an alternative intervention to prevent gonorrhea transmission. However, the long-term effects of mouthwash on the oral microbiota are largely unknown. We investigated the impact of 12 weeks of daily mouthwash use on the oropharyngeal microbiota in a subset of men who have sex with men who participated in a randomized trial comparing the efficacy of two alcohol-free mouthwashes for the prevention of gonorrhea. We characterized the oropharyngeal microbiota using 16S rRNA gene sequencing of tonsillar fossae samples collected before and after 12 weeks of daily use of Listerine mouthwash or Biotène dry mouth oral rinse. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) was used to assess differences in oropharyngeal microbiota composition following mouthwash use. Differential abundance testing was performed using ALDEx2, with false-discovery rate correction. A total of 306 samples from 153 men were analyzed (Listerine, n = 78 and Biotène, n = 75). There was no difference in the overall structure of the oropharyngeal microbiota following Listerine or Biotène use (PERMANOVA P = 0.413 and P = 0.331, respectively). Although no bacterial taxa were significantly differentially abundant following Listerine use, we observed a small but significant decrease in the abundance of both Streptococcus and Leptotrichia following Biotène use. Overall, our findings suggest that daily use of antiseptic mouthwash has minimal long-term effects on the composition of the oropharyngeal microbiota. IMPORTANCE Given the role of the oral microbiota in human health, it is important to understand if and how external factors influence its composition. Mouthwash use is common in some populations, and the use of antiseptic mouthwash has been proposed as an alternative intervention to prevent gonorrhea transmission. However, the long-term effect of mouthwash use on the oral microbiota composition is largely unknown. We found that daily use of two different commercially available mouthwashes had limited long-term effects on the composition of the oropharyngeal microbiota over a 12-week period. The results from our study and prior studies highlight that different mouthwashes may differentially affect the oral microbiome composition and that further studies are needed to determine if mouthwash use induces short-term changes to the oral microbiota that may have detrimental effects.
AB - Mouthwash is a commonly used product and has been proposed as an alternative intervention to prevent gonorrhea transmission. However, the long-term effects of mouthwash on the oral microbiota are largely unknown. We investigated the impact of 12 weeks of daily mouthwash use on the oropharyngeal microbiota in a subset of men who have sex with men who participated in a randomized trial comparing the efficacy of two alcohol-free mouthwashes for the prevention of gonorrhea. We characterized the oropharyngeal microbiota using 16S rRNA gene sequencing of tonsillar fossae samples collected before and after 12 weeks of daily use of Listerine mouthwash or Biotène dry mouth oral rinse. Permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) was used to assess differences in oropharyngeal microbiota composition following mouthwash use. Differential abundance testing was performed using ALDEx2, with false-discovery rate correction. A total of 306 samples from 153 men were analyzed (Listerine, n = 78 and Biotène, n = 75). There was no difference in the overall structure of the oropharyngeal microbiota following Listerine or Biotène use (PERMANOVA P = 0.413 and P = 0.331, respectively). Although no bacterial taxa were significantly differentially abundant following Listerine use, we observed a small but significant decrease in the abundance of both Streptococcus and Leptotrichia following Biotène use. Overall, our findings suggest that daily use of antiseptic mouthwash has minimal long-term effects on the composition of the oropharyngeal microbiota. IMPORTANCE Given the role of the oral microbiota in human health, it is important to understand if and how external factors influence its composition. Mouthwash use is common in some populations, and the use of antiseptic mouthwash has been proposed as an alternative intervention to prevent gonorrhea transmission. However, the long-term effect of mouthwash use on the oral microbiota composition is largely unknown. We found that daily use of two different commercially available mouthwashes had limited long-term effects on the composition of the oropharyngeal microbiota over a 12-week period. The results from our study and prior studies highlight that different mouthwashes may differentially affect the oral microbiome composition and that further studies are needed to determine if mouthwash use induces short-term changes to the oral microbiota that may have detrimental effects.
KW - Men who have sex with men
KW - Mouthwash
KW - Neisseria gonorrhoeae
KW - Oral microbiome
KW - Oropharyngeal gonorrhea
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124315577&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1128/spectrum.01757-21
DO - 10.1128/spectrum.01757-21
M3 - Article
C2 - 35019769
AN - SCOPUS:85124315577
SN - 2165-0497
VL - 10
JO - Microbiology Spectrum
JF - Microbiology Spectrum
IS - 1
M1 - e01757-21
ER -