Microbes are Around and Within Us but Much About Them is Unknown | Harvard Gazette

It’s not a stretch to say that we live in a microbial world. Microbes can make us sick (as they are demonstrating right now), lead the way for medicines like targeted therapeutics and probiotics, and are crucial to almost every biological ecosystem. But there is much we don’t understand about them, so one group of researchers has taken a deeper look at one of the world’s most compact and dense bacterial hot spots: the human mouth.

In a study published last month in Genome Biology, a team of Harvard-led researchers used a recently developed technique combining state-of-the-art genetic sequencing and analysis to get an up-close look at the mouth and the ecosystem of microbial communities living within it, including those that cannot be cultured.

The report details an impressive amount of variability in the bacterial subpopulations living on the tongue, inner cheek, and teeth beyond what had been previously documented. It shines a spotlight on how bacterial communities divide up habitats and pattern themselves.  

Read more at Source: Harvard researchers analyze bacteria in the human mouth – Harvard Gazette