Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
SpringerLink
Log in

Tongue-Coating Microbiome Characterized by the Next-Generation Sequencing and Traditional Tongue Diagnosis

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Metagenomics

  • 222 Accesses

Synonyms

Microbiome in tongue coating; Tongue-coating microbial composition

Definition

Tongue diagnosis is a noninvasive, simple, and unique method in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). TCM practitioners use the color and texture of tongues as a holistic summary of patients’ statuses. It is an important factor in the diagnosis of a patient’s “ZHENG,” an abstraction of TCM syndrome. The tongue diagnosis has been used in TCM for thousands of years. However, scientific understandings of the biological basis underlying traditional tongue diagnosis are still very limited. We inferred that the microbiome composition of tongue coating may affect the tongue appearance and also could be associated with characteristics of human body especially the digestive system.

This entry discusses how traditional tongue diagnosis can be associated with the tongue-coating microbiome by next-generation sequencing technique and bioinformatics analysis. It also highlights the potential of the tongue-coating...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bik EM, Eckburg PB, Gill SR, Nelson KE, Purdom EA, Francois F, et al. Molecular analysis of the bacterial microbiota in the human stomach. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2006;103:732–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hao X, Jiang R, Chen T. Clustering 16S rRNA for OTU prediction: a method of unsupervised Bayesian clustering. Bioinformatics. 2011;27:611–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Human Microbiome Project C. A framework for human microbiome research. Nature. 2012;486:215–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jakobsson HE, Jernberg C, Andersson AF, Sjolund-Karlsson M, Jansson JK, Engstrand L. Short-term antibiotic treatment has differing long-term impacts on the human throat and gut microbiome. PLoS One. 2010;5:e9836.

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jiang B, Liang X, Chen Y, Ma T, Liu L, Li J, Jiang R, Chen T, Zhang X, Li S. Integrating next-generation sequencing and traditional tongue diagnosis to determine tongue coating microbiome. Sci Rep. 2012;2:936.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kanawong R, Obafemi-Ajayi T, Ma T, Xu D, Li S, Duan Y. Automated tongue feature extraction for ZHENG classification in traditional Chinese medicine. Evid. Based Complement. Altern. Med. 2012; 2012:14 p. Article ID: 912852.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kazor CE, Mitchell PM, Lee AM, Stokes LN, Loesche WJ, Dewhirst FE, et al. Diversity of bacterial populations on the tongue dorsa of patients with halitosis and healthy patients. J Clin Microbiol. 2003;41:558–63.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Li S, Zhang Z, Wu L, Zhang X, Li Y, Wang Y. Understanding ZHENG in traditional Chinese medicine in the context of neuro-endocrine-immune network. IET Syst Biol. 2007;1:51–60.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Li R, Ma T, Gu J, Liang X, Li S. Imbalanced network biomarkers for traditional Chinese medicine syndrome in gastritis patients. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1543.

    PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lombardo Bedran TB, Marcantonio RA, Spin Neto R, Alves Mayer MP, Grenier D, Spolidorio LC, et al. Porphyromonas endodontalis in chronic periodontitis: a clinical and microbiological cross-sectional study. J Oral Microbiol. 2012;4. doi:10.3402/jom.v4i0.10123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lopez R, Dahlen G, Retamales C, Baelum V. Clustering of subgingival microbial species in adolescents with periodontitis. Eur J Oral Sci. 2011;119:141–50.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ma T, Tan C, Zhang H, Wang M, Ding W, Li S. Bridging the gap between traditional Chinese medicine and systems biology: the connection of Cold Syndrome and NEI network. Mol Biosyst. 2010;6:613–9.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Martin AP. Phylogenetic approaches for describing and comparing the diversity of microbial communities. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2002;68:3673–82.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Riegel P, Ruimy R, De Briel D, Prevost G, Jehl F, Bimet F, et al. Corynebacterium argentoratense sp. nov., from the human throat. Int J Syst Bacteriol. 1995;45:533–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Segata N, Haake SK, Mannon P, Lemon KP, Waldron L, Gevers D, et al. Composition of the adult digestive tract bacterial microbiome based on seven mouth surfaces, tonsils, throat and stool samples. Genome Biol. 2012;13:R42.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SATCM) of The People’s Republic of China. The criteria of diagnosis and therapeutic effect of diseases and Zhengs in TCM. Nanjing: Nanjing University Press (1994) (in Chinese).

    Google Scholar 

  • Turnbaugh PJ, Gordon JI. The core gut microbiome, energy balance and obesity. J Physiol. 2009;587:4153–8.

    Article  CAS  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tyrrell KL, Citron DM, Warren YA, Nachnani S, Goldstein EJ. Anaerobic bacteria cultured from the tongue dorsum of subjects with oral malodor. Anaerobe. 2003;9:243–6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bioinformatics Division, TNLIST, MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, and Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Shao Li & Xuegong Zhang

  2. School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Shao Li & Xuegong Zhang

Authors
  1. Shao Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Xuegong Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shao Li .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), Rockville, Maryland, USA

    Karen E. Nelson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Li, S., Zhang, X. (2013). Tongue-Coating Microbiome Characterized by the Next-Generation Sequencing and Traditional Tongue Diagnosis. In: Nelson, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Metagenomics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_229-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6418-1_229-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6418-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation