Oral Viruses in Periodontal Disease
Dr. Afsar Raza Naqvi, PhDPeriodontal disease (PD) is an inflammatory condition of the specialized supporting structures of teeth that if left untreated, can result in tooth loss. The onset of PD is driven by dysbiosis of the normal host microbiome, while disease progression is caused by activation of the host innate and adaptive immune response along with disease enhancement by local and systemic risk factors. Common manifestations of dysbiosis include chronic form or the less common, aggressive form of periodontitis. PD is the 6th most common disease globally and is linked to numerous systemic diseases such as diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and others. Significant pathological findings of PD are linked to aberrant periodontal inflammation impacting both oral and systemic tissues. Research in molecular mechanisms modulating periodontal inflammation is important for our understanding of mucosal immunity, especially oral mucosal immunity for the development and/or improvement of therapeutic approaches. In adult humans, one or more types of viruses are persistently detected signifying HHV adaptation inside human body. Multiple lines of evidence show higher prevalence of these viruses in various oral inflammatory diseases but how HHV exacerbate these infections remains unexplored. A unique feature of HHV, unlike other viruses, is that they also encode viral miRNAs (v-miRs). These viral microRNAs (vmiRs) are multifunctional as they regulate expression of both virus and host derived transcripts and thus control host-virus interaction. In our lab we have been studying the pathological role of five most common oral inflammatory diseases associated HHV viz., HCMV, HSV-1, EBV, KSHV and HHV-6B on periodontal inflammation, a highly common oral inflammatory disease. Given their immunomodulatory role, manipulation of these small RNAs may also be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of oral inflammatory diseases.