Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Mar 2;14(1):14.
doi: 10.1038/s41368-022-00163-7.

Oral microbiota in human systematic diseases

Xian Peng  1 , Lei Cheng  1   2 , Yong You  3 , Chengwei Tang  4 , Biao Ren  1 , Yuqing Li  1 , Xin Xu  5   6 , Xuedong Zhou  7   8
Affiliations
Review

Oral microbiota in human systematic diseases

Xian Peng et al. Int J Oral Sci. .

Abstract

Oral bacteria directly affect the disease status of dental caries and periodontal diseases. The dynamic oral microbiota cooperates with the host to reflect the information and status of immunity and metabolism through two-way communication along the oral cavity and the systemic organs. The oral cavity is one of the most important interaction windows between the human body and the environment. The microenvironment at different sites in the oral cavity has different microbial compositions and is regulated by complex signaling, hosts, and external environmental factors. These processes may affect or reflect human health because certain health states seem to be related to the composition of oral bacteria, and the destruction of the microbial community is related to systemic diseases. In this review, we discussed emerging and exciting evidence of complex and important connections between the oral microbes and multiple human systemic diseases, and the possible contribution of the oral microorganisms to systemic diseases. This review aims to enhance the interest to oral microbes on the whole human body, and also improve clinician's understanding of the role of oral microbes in systemic diseases. Microbial research in dentistry potentially enhances our knowledge of the pathogenic mechanisms of oral diseases, and at the same time, continuous advances in this frontier field may lead to a tangible impact on human health.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic of the oral microbiota in human systematic diseases. Oral microbes affect the process of systemic diseases through the inflammatory response caused by oral infection or the ectopic colonization of oral microorganisms in other organs or tissues of the human body, such as tumor, gut, heart, blood, brain, joint, placenta.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Miller WD. The human mouth as a focus of infection. Lancet. 1891;138:340–342.
    1. Billings F. Chronic focal infections and their etiologic relations to arthritis and nephritis. Arch. Intern. Med. 1912;IX:484–498.
    1. Read E, Curtis MA, Neves JF. The role of oral bacteria in inflammatory bowel disease. Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 2021;18:731–742. - PubMed
    1. Tuominen H, Rautava J. Oral microbiota and cancer development. Pathobiology. 2021;88:116–126. - PubMed
    1. Li Y, et al. Oral, tongue-coating microbiota, and metabolic disorders: a novel area of interactive research. Front. Cardiovasc. Med. 2021;8:730203. - PMC - PubMed