ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Dent. Med.
Sec. Aging and Dental Medicine
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdmed.2025.1653315
This article is part of the Research TopicImpact of Sex and Aging in Periodontal DiseasesView all 4 articles
Sex Effects on Early Life Features of the Gingival Transcriptome
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, United States
- 2University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, Lexington, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract Background: Epidemiologic assessment of periodontitis prevalence and extent demonstrates age, sex, and race/ethnicity effects. However, the biological sources of these observations regarding sex differences with an elevated incidence in males remain unclear. Methods: This study used a model of experimental ligature-induced periodontitis in young nonhuman primates (Macaca mulatta) to evaluate gingival transcriptomic differences stratified based on the sex of the animal. The animals represent humans aged 10-25 years of age, with gingival tissue samples obtained at baseline, 0.5 months (initiation), and 1 and 3 months (progression). Microarray analysis was used to quantify gene expression profiles in the gingival tissues. Results: The results demonstrated clear gene expression differences in healthy (baseline) tissues between the sexes, with elevations in females associated with immune responses and elevated gene expression in males related to tissue structural genes. With disease initiation, fewer genes differed between the sexes, although a pattern of a greater number of unique gene expression changes was observed in females at late progression. Overexpressed biological processes showed tissue structural/functional genes at initiation, with host response pathways altered during disease progression. Conclusion: These findings support that this model can be used to explore processes that contribute to sex as a biological variable in periodontitis.
Keywords: nonhuman primate, Aging, Sex, Transcriptome, Periodontitis
Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ebersole, Nguyen, Kirakodu and Gonzalez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jeffrey Ebersole, jeffrey.ebersole@unlv.edu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.