Biodiversity of the human oral mycobiome in health and disease

Herath Mudiyansalage Herath Nihal Bandara, Chamila P. Panduwawala, Lakshman Perera Samaranayake*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

70 Citations (Scopus)
266 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The organisms that colonize the human body over a lifetime are diverse, extensive and gargantuan. A fair proportion of the microbiota that constitutes this human microbiome live within our oral cavities mostly as harmonious associates causing only sporadic disease. An important core constituent of the microbiome is the mycobiome, representing various fungal genera. Up until recently, only a few species of fungi, mainly Candida species, were thought to constitute the human oral mycobiome. The reasons for this are manifold, although the uncultivable nature of many fungi in conventional laboratory media, and their complex genetic composition seem to be the major factors which eluded their detection over the years. Nevertheless, recent advances in computing and high throughput sequencing such as next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms have provided us a panoramic view of a totally new world of fungi that are human oral co-habitués. Their diversity is perplexing, and functionality yet to be deciphered. Here we provide a glimpse of what is currently known of the oral mycobiome, in health and disease, with some future perspectives.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)363-371
Number of pages9
JournalOral Diseases
Volume25
Issue number2
Early online date11 Jun 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2019

Keywords

  • biodiversity
  • fungi
  • high‐throughput sequencing
  • human microbiome
  • oral mycobiome

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