Comparisons of oral, intestinal, and pancreatic bacterial microbiomes in patients with pancreatic cancer and other gastrointestinal diseases

Background: Oral microbiota is believed to play important roles in systemic diseases, including cancer. Methods: We collected oral samples (tongue, buccal, supragingival, and saliva) and pancreatic tissue or intestinal samples from 52 subjects, and characterized 16S rRNA genes using high-throughput DNA sequencing. Results: Bray–Curtis plot showed clear separations between bacterial communities in the oral cavity and those in intestinal and pancreatic tissue samples. PERMANOVA tests indicated that bacterial communities from buccal samples were similar to supragingival and saliva samples, and pancreatic duct samples were similar to pancreatic tumor samples, but all other samples were significantly different from each other. A total of 73 unique Amplicon Sequence Variants (ASVs) were shared between oral and pancreatic or intestinal samples. Only four ASVs showed significant concordance, and two specific bacterial species (Gemella morbillorum and Fusobacterium nucleatum subsp. vincentii) showed consistent presence or absence patterns between oral and intestinal or pancreatic samples, after adjusting for within-subject correlation and disease status. Lastly, microbial co-abundance analyses showed distinct strain-level cluster patterns among microbiome members in buccal, saliva, duodenum, jejunum, and pancreatic tumor samples. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that oral, intestinal, and pancreatic bacterial microbiomes overlap but exhibit distinct co-abundance patterns in patients with pancreatic cancer and other gastrointestinal diseases.