Oral Microbiome and Inflammatory markers in Oral Cancer, Pre-Malignancy and Normal Individuals – A Comparative Study.

**i.**Title: Oral Microbiome and Oncogenic cytokines in development of Oral Cancer Rationale: Approximately 13% of global cancer burden are directly attributed to infectious agents due to Chronic inflammation and Microbial pathogens.  Human Oral Microbiome Database reports existence of 774 bacterial species.Presence of pro-inflammatory microbes promotes carcinogenetic modulation of cell metabolism resulting in different cytokines that enhance tumor cell proliferation and survival.Pro-inflammatory cytokines are associated with increased oral mucosal damage with higher concentrations of IL-6, IL-8 & TNF-α (oncogenic cytokines) reported in saliva of Oral cancer patients.  Hence, altered microbiomes and salivary oncogenic cytokines, associated with oral inflammation, make potential biomarkers for disease diagnosis.    Novelty: Microbiome profile & oncogenic cytokines, and its association in development of oral cancers are not well established.  We plan to undertake exploratory study to understand their potential role and its association with risk for oral cancer development.   Objectives:Identifying (1) Microbiome and (2) Oncogenic cytokines in Salivary and Buccal mucosal scraping samples in Oral Cancers, Pre – Malignancy & Healthy Individuals.To identify relative distribution of microbes and oncogenic cytokines. Methods·  Whole genome shotgun metagenomic sequencing (platform: Next generation sequencing) will be used to measure overall oral microbiomes followed by Bioinformatics analysis.·         Chemiluminescence & ELISA for Oncogenic cytokines   Expected outcome:  Identifying relative distribution of microbes and oncogenic cytokines in pre-cancer and cancer as compared to healthy environments   To explore potential utility of microbiome & oncogenic cytokines for early detection of oral cancers.