Biofilm Control Strategies in Dental Health - Antibiofilm Agents: From Diagnosis to Treatment and Prevention - page 284

Fig. 1 Dental biofilm formation follows a defined sequence of events, and the biofilm has a well-
defined architecture. Model of oral biofilm showing the dynamics of formation from the bottom
with oral streptococci to the top with a more mature biofilm and the presence of gram-negative
bacteria. Species-species interactions are mediated by specific molecules, and the final result is a
biofilm with well-defined architecture (From Kolenbrander et al. 2002 )
Mature oral biofilms are robust and resilient, acting as reservoirs of antibiotic
resistance and virulence in deep periodontal pockets. Their uncontrolled growth
eventually may lead to disease. A defining characteristic of the multispecies dental
plaque biofilm, as well as other microbial biofilms, is communication either from
cell to cell or from microcommunity to macrocommunity. This dynamic commu-
nication, called “quorum sensing,” provides a mechanism for bacteria to monitor
each other's presence and to modulate gene expression in response to changes in
population density. With the advent of Next Generation Sequencing technologies,
there has been a renewed interest on studying the composition of the oral