Oral polymicrobial communities: Assembly, function, and impact on diseases

• Published in: Cell host & microbe 2023-04, Vol.31 (4), p.528-538
• Main Authors: Hajishengallis, George, Lamont, Richard J., Koo, Hyun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: caries; Dental Caries; Dysbiosis; Humans; inflammation; Microbiota; oral microbiome; Periodontitis; Signal Transduction; spatial structure; systemic comorbidities
• ISSN: 1931-3128; 1934-6069; 1934-6069
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2023.02.009

Oral microbial communities assemble into complex spatial structures. The sophisticated physical and chemical signaling systems underlying the community enable their collective functional regulation as well as the ability to adapt by integrating environmental information. The combined output of community action, as shaped by both intra-community interactions and host and environmental variables, dictates homeostatic balance or dysbiotic disease such as periodontitis and dental caries. Oral polymicrobial dysbiosis also exerts systemic effects that adversely affect comorbidities, in part due to ectopic colonization of oral pathobionts in extra-oral tissues. Here, we review new and emerging concepts that explain the collective functional properties of oral polymicrobial communities and how these impact health and disease both locally and systemically. In oral polymicrobial communities, individual species are physically and metabolically integrated, and their combined interaction with the host environment governs homeostatic balance or dysbiosis. Hajishengallis et al. discuss the spatial structuring of these communities, mechanisms underlying the communities’ emergent functions, and their impact on local and systemic health and disease.