Mediators of the initiation, development, and recurrence of periodontitis include the oral microbiome embedded in subgingival plaque and the host immune response to a dysbiosis within this dynamic and complex microbial community. Although mediators have been studied extensively, researchers in the field have been unable to fully ascribe certain clinical presentations of periodontitis to their nature. Emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies has resulted in better characterization of the microbial oral dysbiosis that extends beyond the extensively studied putative bacterial periodontopathogens to a shift in the oral virome composition during disease conditions. Although the biological dark matter inserted by retroviruses was once believed to be nonfunctional, research has revealed that it encodes historical viral-eukaryotic interactions and influences host development. The objective of this review is to evaluate the proposed association of herpesviruses to the etiology and pathogenesis of periodontal disease and survey the highly abundant prokaryotic viruses to delineate their potential roles in biofilm dynamics, as well as their interactions with putative bacterial periodontopathogens and eukaryotic cells. The findings suggest that potential novel periodontal therapies targeting or utilizing the oral virome can alleviate certain clinical presentations of periodontitis. Perhaps it is time to embrace the viral dark matter within the periodontal environment to fully comprehend the pathogenesis and systemic implications of periodontitis.

中文翻译：

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人类口腔病毒组：揭示暗物质

牙周炎的发生、发展和复发的介导因素包括嵌入龈下菌斑中的口腔微生物组以及宿主对这个动态且复杂的微生物群落内菌群失调的免疫反应。尽管介质已被广泛研究，但该领域的研究人员无法将牙周炎的某些临床表现完全归因于其性质。高通量测序技术的出现更好地表征了口腔微生物失调，其范围超出了广泛研究的假定细菌性牙周病原体，还包括疾病条件下口腔病毒组组成的变化。尽管逆转录病毒插入的生物暗物质曾经被认为是无功能的，但研究表明它编码历史上的病毒-真核相互作用并影响宿主发育。本综述的目的是评估疱疹病毒与牙周病病因和发病机制之间的关联，并调查高度丰富的原核病毒，以描述它们在生物膜动力学中的潜在作用，以及它们与假定的细菌性牙周病原体和真核细胞的相互作用。研究结果表明，针对或利用口腔病毒组的潜在新型牙周疗法可以缓解牙周炎的某些临床表现。也许是时候拥抱牙周环境中的病毒暗物质，以充分理解牙周炎的发病机制和系统影响。