Integrated periodontal pathogens and circulating miRNAs: a novel non-invasive panel of biomarkers for pancreatic cancer.

INTRODUCTION

The associations between oral bacterial pathogens and the risk of pancreatic cancer (PC) have been reported in several epidemiological studies. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic potential of periodontal pathogens Porphyromonas gingivalis and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans in combination with circulating oncomiRNAs, including miR-21 and miR-155.

METHODS

A total of 41 PC patients and 40 age- and sex-matched controls were recruited for the study. The salivary bacterial load of P. gingivalis and A. actinomycetemcomitans, along with the copy number of miR-21 and miR-155 in blood, were measured using quantitative real-time PCR. Subsequently, logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis were used to determine the association of biomarkers with PC risk and their diagnostic performance, respectively.

RESULTS

Elevated load of the periodontal pathogens P. gingivalis in females (OR = 2.31; 95% CI 0.98-5.47) and A. actinomycetemcomitans in diabetic individuals (OR = 3.66; 95% CI 0.47-6.68) was associated with a higher risk of PC. Moreover, the diagnostic model incorporating two salivary species and two circulating miRNAs demonstrated an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.878 (95% CI 0.802-0.955).

DISCUSSION: This study offers compelling new evidence supporting the idea that the combined analysis of salivary microbiota and circulating miRNAs serves as an informative avenue for the discovery of non-invasive biomarkers for PC, potentially applicable to early detection and clinical screening.