Russell R R
Department of Oral Biology, Dental School, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Caries Res. 1994;28(2):69-82. doi: 10.1159/000261625.
The introduction of techniques for the manipulation of DNA in vitro has had an enormous impact on progress in every area of biological research. In the case of oral microbiology, the first reports on the application of molecular genetics to streptococci started to appear in the early 1980s, and it is now more than 10 years since the first paper describing cloning and expression of a gene from Streptococcus mutans in another bacterium was published. The purpose of this review is not to provide a resumé of all the work that has been done on the molecular biology of oral bacteria; indeed, we are approaching the stage when a comprehensive survey of work on all oral bacteria is no longer feasible--for instance, over 40 genes have now been cloned and sequenced from S. mutans alone--but rather to illustrate examples of how the new techniques have been applied to give novel approaches and insights into old problems, or expand into new directions. The great majority of published work so far relates to streptococci, and many aspects have been covered in previous review articles [Curtiss, 1985; Russell, 1991], the most recent thorough review being that by Kuramitsu [1993]. Discussion of molecular biology is now so all-pervasive that most readers will be familiar with many of the basic terms, but it may be worth clarifying some of the main points during the course of this article. For total novices, the short book by Brown [1990] forms a useful introduction. A number of recent articles have reviewed recent research on plaque formation [Kolenbrander and London, 1993] and the mutans streptococci in particular [Loesche, 1986], while Freedman et al. [1981] and Tanzer [1992] have summarised the information derived from a genetic approach to oral microbiology before the advent on in vitro manipulation of DNA.
体外DNA操作技术的引入对生物学研究各个领域的进展产生了巨大影响。就口腔微生物学而言，关于分子遗传学应用于链球菌的首批报告于20世纪80年代初开始出现，自第一篇描述变形链球菌基因在另一种细菌中的克隆和表达的论文发表至今已有10多年。本综述的目的不是对已开展的关于口腔细菌分子生物学的所有工作进行总结；实际上，我们正接近这样一个阶段，即对所有口腔细菌的工作进行全面调查已不再可行——例如，仅从变形链球菌中就已克隆和测序了40多个基因——而是举例说明这些新技术是如何被应用于为老问题提供新方法和新见解，或拓展到新方向的。到目前为止，绝大多数已发表的工作都与链球菌有关，之前的综述文章[柯蒂斯，1985；拉塞尔，1991]已涵盖了许多方面，最近的全面综述是仓光[1993]所写的。如今分子生物学的讨论无处不在，大多数读者可能对许多基本术语都很熟悉，但在本文过程中澄清一些要点可能是值得的。对于完全的新手来说，布朗[1990]的简短书籍是一本有用的入门读物。最近的一些文章综述了关于菌斑形成的最新研究[科伦布兰德和伦敦，1993]，特别是关于变形链球菌属[洛舍，1986]，而弗里德曼等人[1981]和坦泽[1992]总结了在DNA体外操作出现之前从口腔微生物学的遗传学方法中获得的信息。
