Department of Public Health, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Oral Health Promotion, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
PLoS One. 2019 Feb 7;14(2):e0207560. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207560. eCollection 2019.
With rapid aging of the world's population, the demand for research, for a better understanding of aging and aging-related disorders, is increasing. Ideally, such research should be conducted on human subjects. However, due to ethical considerations, animals such as rodents and monkeys are used as alternatives. Among these alternative models, non-human primates are preferred because of their similarities with humans. The small South American common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) may offer several advantages over other non-human primates in terms of its smaller size, shorter life-span, and dental anatomy identical to humans. The purpose of this study was to determine the viability of using the marmoset as a human oral disease model. We collected saliva samples from eight marmosets and eight human subjects. Prokaryotic DNA was extracted from the saliva samples, and 16S bacterial rRNA gene sequencing was performed on each of the samples. Our results indicated that the types of oral microbiomes detected among human and marmoset samples were nearly indistinguishable. In contrast, the oral microbiomes of our human and marmoset subjects were distinctly different from those reported for rats and dogs, which are currently popular research animals. The oral microbiomes of marmosets showed greater diversity than those of humans. However, the oral microbiota of marmosets exhibited less variation than those of humans, which may be attributed to the fact that the marmoset subjects were kept in a controlled environment with identical lifestyles. The characteristics of its oral microbiota, combined with other technical advantages, suggest that the marmoset may provide the best animal model thus far for the study of oral health. This study characterized the oral microbes of the marmoset, thereby providing information to support future application of the marmoset as a model for age-related oral disease.
随着世界人口的快速老龄化，对研究的需求，对衰老和与衰老相关的疾病的更好理解，正在增加。理想情况下，这种研究应该在人体上进行。然而，由于伦理考虑，啮齿动物和猴子等动物被用作替代品。在这些替代模型中，非人类灵长类动物由于与人类的相似性而被优先选用。小型南美绒猴（Callithrix jacchus）在体型较小、寿命较短以及与人类相同的牙齿解剖结构方面，可能比其他非人类灵长类动物具有更多优势。本研究旨在确定将绒猴用作人类口腔疾病模型的可行性。我们从八只绒猴和八名人类受试者中收集了唾液样本。从唾液样本中提取原核 DNA，并对每个样本进行 16S 细菌 rRNA 基因测序。我们的结果表明，在人类和绒猴样本中检测到的口腔微生物组的类型几乎无法区分。相比之下，我们的人类和绒猴受试者的口腔微生物组与目前流行的研究动物大鼠和狗的口腔微生物组明显不同。绒猴的口腔微生物组多样性大于人类。然而，绒猴的口腔微生物组比人类的口腔微生物组变化更小，这可能是因为绒猴受试者生活在相同的生活方式的受控环境中。其口腔微生物组的特征，结合其他技术优势，表明绒猴可能是迄今为止研究口腔健康的最佳动物模型。本研究对绒猴的口腔微生物进行了描述，从而为未来将绒猴作为与年龄相关的口腔疾病模型的应用提供了信息支持。
