Transcrptomic analysis of dysplastic oral keratinocytes infected with Fusobacterium polymorphum strains from patients with leukoplakia

Fusobacterium polymorphum has been implicated in oral squamous cell carcinoma, yet its widespread presence in the oral cavity raises questions about whether different clinical isolates exert distinct effects on host cells. To explore host transcriptional responses, we performed transcriptomic profiling of dysplastic oral keratinocytes (DOK) following exposure to F. polymorphum isolates derived from across the oral epithelial disease spectrum. The host transcriptomic response revealed a broadly shared pro-inflammatory signature across all isolates, regardless of their clinical origin. However, expression of genes and pathways associated with cell proliferation and related signaling processes varied among isolates and correlated with the dysplasia severity of the lesions from which the strains were derived. These findings suggest that while F. polymorphum isolates elicit a common inflammatory response in epithelial cells, variation in host transcriptional programs linked to proliferation may reflect differences in their biological impact.