Inter-personal diversity and temporal dynamics of dental, tongue, and salivary microbiota in the healthy oral cavity

Abstract

Peering into the mouth: Bacterial turnover in plaque and saliva A study of bacteria in the mouth reveals insights into their diversity, stability, and variability among people and over time. By tracking daily, weekly, and monthly fluctuations of plaque and salivary bacteria in ten healthy volunteers, Dilani Senadheera at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto and co-researchers in Canada reveal significant differences in the “microbiome” present in dental, tongue and saliva samples over time. They found considerable variation in these communities between individuals, sufficient to identify a person with “bacterial fingerprints” using plaque or saliva even after 1 year. The researchers reveal a “core community” that spans different persons, oral sites, and time, suggesting some level of stability. This study is useful to understand the diversity and community drifts in different oral sites over time, which is important when plaque and saliva are used for bacterial analysis in diagnostic, risk-prediction, and forensic applications.