Abstract:
Objective To investigate the expression levels of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) and fork head box-O3FOXO3) in patients with chronic periodontitis (CP), and their influence on the severity of the disease.
Methods A total of 100 CP patients were selected as the CP group, and divided into the mild group (49 cases) and moderate and severe group (51 cases) according to the working definition of CDC/AAP. In addition, 100 cases of physical examination in the same period were selected as the control group. The DNMT1 level in gingival crevicular fluid was detected by ELISA, and the level of FOXO3 in gingival crevicular fluid was determined by fluorescence quantitative PCR. The Pearson method was used to analyze the relationship between DNMT1 and FOXO3 levels and clinical indicators. The predictive efficacy of DNMT1 and FOXO3 levels on the severity of CP patients was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.
Results The DNMT1 and FOXO3 levels in the CP group were higher than those in control group (P < 0.05). Compared with the mild group, the gingival index, plaque index, sulcus bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth, accessory loss, and levels of IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α, CRP, DNMT1 and FOXO3 in the moderate and severe group were obviously higher (P < 0.05). The DNMT1 level in gingival crevicular fluid of CP patients was positively correlated with the FOXO3, gingival index, crevicular bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth, accessory loss, IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α (r = 0.537, 0.609, 0.632, 0.516, 0.524, 0.628, 0.650, 0.558, P < 0.05), and weakly correlated with the plaque index and CRP (r = 0.380, 0.237, P < 0.05). The FOXO3 in gingival crevicular fluid was positively correlated with gingival index, sulcus bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth, accessory loss, IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α (r = 0.602, 0.598, 0.504, 0.511, 0.619, 0.638, 0.537, P < 0.05), and weakly correlated with the plaque index and CRP (r = 0.362, 0.219, P < 0.05). The AUC of DNMT1 and FOXO3 levels in predicting the moderate and severe CP were 0.784 and 0.800, respectively, and the AUC of combined prediction (0.885) was significantly higher than that predicted by DNMT1 and FOXO3 alone (Z = 1.717, 1.529, P < 0.05).
Conclusions The DNMT1 and FOXO3 levels in gingival crevicular fluid of patients with CP are high, which are related to the gingival index, crevicular bleeding index, periodontal pocket depth, accessory loss, IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α, can reflect the disease activity of CP, and is expected to be a predictor of moderate and severe CP.