Palmer Robert J
Oral Infection and Immunity Branch, National Institute of Dental Craniofacial Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Compend Contin Educ Dent. 2010 Mar;31(2):104-6, 108, 110 passim; quiz 124, 138.
Most microorganisms in nature live in multispecies communities attached to a substratum-biofilms. Within these communities, organismal interaction is spatiotemporally defined. Because biofilms exist at an interface, their environment is characterized by gradients of nutrients that encourage spatial and metabolic diversity within the population. Oral bacterial biofilms were among the first human-associated biofilms to have been extensively investigated. They are diverse in species, and that diversity reflects the range of habitats within the oral cavity. Oral bacterial communities can be studied in vitro and in vivo. These studies have yielded information on interorganismal interactions and the developmental patterns within the communities. The wealth of information on these communities, coupled with their accessibility in their natural state, firmly establishes them as paradigm systems in biofilm research.
自然界中的大多数微生物生活在附着于基质的多物种群落——生物膜中。在这些群落中，生物体间的相互作用在时空上是有界定的。由于生物膜存在于一个界面处，其环境的特点是营养物质呈梯度分布，这促进了种群内的空间和代谢多样性。口腔细菌生物膜是最早被广泛研究的与人类相关的生物膜之一。它们物种多样，这种多样性反映了口腔内栖息地的范围。口腔细菌群落可以在体外和体内进行研究。这些研究已经得出了关于生物体间相互作用以及群落内发育模式的信息。关于这些群落的丰富信息，再加上它们在自然状态下易于获取，使其稳固地成为生物膜研究中的范例系统。
