Background: The human oral microbiome influences initiation or progression of diseases like caries or periodontitis. Metaproteomics approaches enable the simultaneous investigation of microbial and host proteins and their interactions to improve understanding of oral diseases.

Objective: In this study, we provide a detailed metaproteomics perspective of the composition of salivary and tongue microbial communities of young healthy subjects.

Design: Stimulated saliva and tongue samples were collected from 24 healthy volunteers, subjected to shotgun nLC-MS/MS and analyzed by the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline and the Prophane tool.

Results: 3,969 bacterial and 1,857 human proteins could be identified from saliva and tongue, respectively. In total, 1,971 bacterial metaproteins and 1,154 human proteins were shared in both sample types. Twice the amount of bacterial metaproteins were uniquely identified for the tongue dorsum compared to saliva. Overall, 107 bacterial genera of seven phyla formed the microbiome. Comparative analysis identified significant functional differences between the microbial biofilm on the tongue and the microbiome of saliva.

Conclusion: Even if the microbial communities of saliva and tongue dorsum showed a strong similarity based on identified protein functions and deduced bacterial composition, certain specific characteristics were observed. Both microbiomes exhibit a great diversity with seven genera being most abundant.

背景：人类口腔微生物组会影响龋齿或牙周炎等疾病的发生或发展。元蛋白质组学方法可同时研究微生物和宿主蛋白及其相互作用，以增进对口腔疾病的了解。

目的：在这项研究中，我们为年轻健康受试者的唾液和舌头微生物群落组成提供了详细的元蛋白质组学观点。

设计：从24名健康志愿者中收集刺激的唾液和舌头样本，进行散弹枪nLC-MS / MS检验，并通过跨蛋白质组学管道和Prophane工具进行分析。

结果：唾液和舌头分别鉴定出3,969种细菌蛋白和1,857种人蛋白。两种样品类型共有1,971个细菌元蛋白和1,154个人类蛋白。与唾液相比，唯一两次鉴定出舌背细菌细菌蛋白的含量。总体而言，七个菌群的107个细菌属形成了微生物组。比较分析确定了舌头上的微生物膜和唾液微生物组之间的显着功能差异。

结论：即使基于鉴定的蛋白质功能和推导的细菌组成，唾液和舌背的微生物群落显示出很强的相似性，也观察到某些特定特征。两种微生物都表现出极大的多样性，其中七个属最为丰富。