Oral Microbiology: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Xue-song He, Wen-yuan Shi. Oral Microbiology: Past, Present and Future. International Journal of Oral Science, 1(2): 47-58, 2009Since the initial observations of oral bacteria within dental plaque by van Leeuwenhoek using his primitive microscopes in 1680, an event that is generally recognized as the advent of oral microbiological investigation, oral microbiology has gone through phases of "reductionism" and "holism". From the small beginnings of the Miller and Black period, in which microbiologists followed Koch's postulates, took the reductionist approach to try to study the complex oral microbial community by analyzing individual species; to the modern era when oral researchers embrace "holism" or "system thinking", adopt new concepts such as interspecies interaction, microbial community, biofilms, poly-microbial diseases, oral microbiological knowledge has burgeoned and our ability to identify the resident organisms in dental plaque and decipher the interactions between key components has rapidly increased, such knowledge has greatly changed our view of the oral microbial flora, provided invaluable insight into the etiology of dental and periodontal diseases, opened the door to new approaches and techniques for developing new therapeutic and preventive tools for combating oral polymicrobial diseases.

Interleukin-6 polymorphisms modify the risk of periodontitis:a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…It is widely accepted that cytokines and oral pathogens play central roles in the inflammatory process associated with the etiology of periodontitis (Taylor et al, 2004;Wu et al, 2007;He and Shi, 2009). As a pleiotropic cytokine, IL-6 is induced in response to several inflammatory stimuli (Terry et al, 2000).…”

Phylogenetic and functional gene structure shifts of the oral microbiomes in periodontitis patients

“…It is well accepted that periodontitis is initiated by bacteria embedded in biofilms known as subgingival dental plaque and involves complex interactions of bacteria with the host (Tatakis and Kumar, 2005;He and Shi, 2009;Darveau, 2010). Macromolecules synthesized by periodontal prokaryotes, such as fimbriae, hydrolytic and proteolytic enzymes, as well as metabolic end products (sulfur-containing compounds, ammonia, short-chain fatty acids and so on) play important roles in the destruction of tooth supporting tissues (Socransky and Haffajee, 1992).…”

Polymicrobial Interactions: Impact on Pathogenesis and Human Disease

“…However, we still do not have a solid understanding of how multispecies interactions govern the scope, progression, and severity of human disease, and even less is known regarding how the host responds to polymicrobial infection compared to monomicrobial infection (86). It was previously believed that a single virulence factor sufficiently mediated disease caused by a single organism.…”