Oral virome in health and disease

Despite estimates suggesting more than 380 trillion viruses reside within the body, an order of magnitude greater than the number of bacteria, the human virome remains largely unexplored. Pandemics and worldwide threats over the past century have highlighted our limited knowledge of viral pathogens in the body. Moreover, knowledge of what constitutes a healthy human virome is lacking, representing a considerable knowledge gap. The National Institutes of Health Human Virome Program aims to fill this gap by means of defining all facets of the human virome across the life and health spans in diverse populations.

The authors summarized the known information and challenges related to interrogating the human virome across the oral-gut-brain axis and its implications for oral health and clinical dental practice.

Viruses are the most abundant and diverse biological entities on the planet, and distinct viral communities inhabit human body sites. Most researchers have focused on viruses linked to systemic disease; however, commensal viruses have the potential for conferring health and therapeutic benefits. The aim of the Human Virome Program was to characterize commensal viruses in the human body across the lifespan.

Human virome characterization will advance our understanding of healthy viromes, promote advances in biomedical research, enable identification of disease-associated disruptions, and improve our capacity to detect, diagnose, and discover viruses that may pose threats to human health. For the dental community, an understanding of the oral virome will be essential for correlating viral signatures with patient health, treatment response, and predicting future oral health risks.