Abstract

 

Human oral cavity contains a highly personalized microbiome that is essential to maintaining health but capable of causing oral and systemic diseases. Thus, an in-depth definition of ¡°healthy oral microbiome¡± is critical to understanding variations in disease states from preclinical conditions and disease onset through progressive states of disease. With rapid advances in DNA sequencing and analytical technologies, population-based studies have documented the ranges and diversity of both taxonomic compositions and functional potentials observed in the oral microbiome in healthy individuals. Besides factors specific to the host, such as age and race/ethnicity, environmental factors also appear to contribute to the variability of the healthy oral microbiome. Here, we review bioinformatic techniques for metagenomic dataset, with some comments on their strengths and limitations. We also summarize our knowledge on the interpersonal and intrapersonal diversity of the oral microbiome, in the light of recent large-scale and longitudinal studies including Human Microbiome Project.