Age Associated Shifts Toward Anaerobic Taxa and Amino Acid Degradation Potential in the Canine Oral Microbiome

In 1,125 dogs, oral microbiomes shift with age toward anaerobic taxa: oxygen-tolerant abundance drops from 67.5% in puppies to 29.1% in mature dogs, while anaerobes rise from 14.3% to 53.8%.

• Why it matters: Periodontal disease is common in dogs, but it is unclear how the oral microbiome reorganizes across age at both ecological and metabolic levels.
• What they did: Shotgun metagenomic buccal-swab profiles were analyzed with MetaPhlAn and HUMAnN, including oxygen-preference annotations and nested cross-validated Elastic Net models predicting age and weight.
• The result: Age-linked oxygen preference is reflected by a declining oxygen-tolerant:anaerobe log-ratio (Spearman rho = -0.616), alongside higher amino-acid-degradation potential and lower glycolysis/central-carbohydrate potential, and age prediction with Pearson r = 0.609 (R-squared = 0.371).

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