title: Characterization of bacteriophage communities and CRISPR profiles from dental plaque.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dental plaque is home to a diverse and complex community of bacteria, but has generally been believed to be inhabited by relatively few viruses. We sampled the saliva and dental plaque from 4 healthy human subjects to determine whether plaque was populated by viral communities, and whether there were differences in viral communities specific to subject or sample type.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found that the plaque was inhabited by a community of bacteriophage whose membership was mostly subject-specific. There was a significant proportion of viral homologues shared between plaque and salivary viromes within each subject, suggesting that some oral viruses were present in both sites. We also characterized Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPRs) in oral streptococci, as their profiles provide clues to the viruses that oral bacteria may be able to counteract. While there were some CRISPR spacers specific to each sample type, many more were shared across sites and were highly subject specific. Many CRISPR spacers matched viruses present in plaque, suggesting that the evolution of CRISPR loci may have been specific to plaque-derived viruses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings of subject specificity to both plaque-derived viruses and CRISPR profiles suggest that human viral ecology may be highly personalized.
authors: Mayuri
authors: M
authors: Naidu
authors: Refugio
authors: R
authors: Robles-Sikisaka
authors: Shira R
authors: SR
authors: Abeles
authors: Tobias K
authors: TK
authors: Boehm
authors: Department of Pathology, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. dpride@ucsd.edu.
authors: David T
authors: DT
authors: Pride
mesh_terms: D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D044822:Biodiversity; D064112:Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats; D003773:Dental Plaque / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D012463:Saliva / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology; D013291:Streptococcus / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*