Salivary microbiota in oral health and disease

Abstract

The salivary microbiota is a highly complex microbial community, presumably comprised by bacteria shed from various oral surfaces, and since saliva can be easily and noninvasively collected, compositional changes of the salivary microbiota may potentially serve as a biomarker used for screening of oral and systemic diseases. This chapter describes the composition of the salivary microbiota in oral health and disease, with special emphasis on recent studies that employed modern molecular methods for analysis of the salivary microbiota.