Deciphering Ecological Interactions in Oral Microbiome Remodelling Associated with Aging-Induced Taste Sensitivity Decline: a case study in Fangshan District, Beijing, China

Aging-induced taste sensitivity decline, recognized as a world-wide health issue, has shown considerable modulatory effects on the oral microbiome that serves as an etiological driver for multiple dysbiosis-associated diseases. However, the underlying ecological interactions remain poorly characterized. Therefore, this study conducted oral metagenomic/metabolomic analysis for youth/elderly individuals with different taste sensitivities. Results showed that elevated fatty acid levels in elderly samples with low taste sensitivity drove a metabolic adaptation of the oral microbiome that the substrate preference of energy metabolism altered from monosaccharides to fatty acids, which resulted in the remodelling of the oral microbiome composition. In addition, the up-regulation of Prevotella species engaging in active quorum sensing interactions with other oral bacteria in elderly samples was found to affect oral microbiome remodelling. Furthermore, community-level metabolic modeling and synthetic co-culture experiments revealed and validated that interspecies nutrient feeding contributed to the oral microbiome remodelling. Collectively, these findings elucidated the modulatory effects of aging-induced taste sensitivity decline on the oral microbiome by decoding the ecological Interactions of key oral bacteria and metabolites, paving the way for developing viable strategies for oral microbiome rehabilitation.