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Abstract
This review covers developments in the study of polymicrobial communities, biofilms and selected areas of host response relevant to dental plaque and related areas of oral biology. The emphasis is on recent studies in which proteomic methods, particularly those using mass spectrometry as a readout, have played a major role in the investigation. The last 5–10 years have seen a transition of such methods from the periphery of oral biology to the mainstream, as in other areas of biomedical science. For reasons of focus and space, the authors do not discuss biomarker studies relevant to improved diagnostics for oral health, as this literature is rather substantial in its own right and deserves a separate treatment. Here, global gene regulation studies of plaque-component organisms, biofilm formation, multispecies interactions and host–microbe interactions are discussed. Several aspects of proteomics methodology that are relevant to the studies of multispecies systems are commented upon.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank David AC Beck for discussion and criticism and Fred Taub for computer support and database programming.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
Funding was provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan through grants-in-aid for Scientific Research (B), Scientific Research on Innovative Areas and Scientific Research for Challenging Exploratory Research, and by NIH NIDCR through grants DE014372 and DE11111. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.