Salivary microbiota may predict the presence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

The aim is to explore the predictive value of salivary bacteria for the presence of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Saliva samples were obtained from 178 patients with ESCC and 101 healthy controls, and allocated to screening and verification cohorts, respectively. In the screening phase, after saliva DNA was extracted, 16S rRNA V4 regions of salivary bacteria were amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with high-throughput sequencing. Highly expressed target bacteria were screened by Operational Taxonomic Units clustering, species annotation and microbial diversity assessment. In the verification phase, the expression levels of target bacteria identified in the screening phase were verified by absolute quantitative PCR (Q-PCR). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to investigate the predictive value of target salivary bacteria. LEfSe analysis revealed higher proportions of Fusobacterium, Streptococcus and Porphyromonas, and Q-PCR assay showed significantly higher numbers of Streptococcus salivarius, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis in patients with ESCC, when compared with healthy controls (all P < 0.05). The areas under the ROC curves for Streptococcus salivarius, Fusobacterium nucleatum, Porphyromonas gingivalis and the combination of the three bacteria for predicting patients with ESCC were 69%, 56.5%, 61.8% and 76.4%, respectively. The sensitivities corresponding to cutoff value were 69.3%, 22.7%, 35.2% and 86.4%, respectively, and the matched specificity were 78.4%, 96.1%, 90.2% and 58.8%, respectively. These highly expressed Streptococcus salivarius, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Porphyromonas gingivalis in the saliva, alone or in combination, indicate their predictive value for ESCC.