Talk of the town: interspecies communication in oral biofilms

Mature dental biofilms consist of towering microcolonies in which the resident bacterial cells interact with one another and exchange messages in the form of signalling molecules and metabolites. These structures have been compared with the bustling office blocks and apartment buildings of busy cities. Social and communication networks are the lifeblood of large communities, and there is mounting evidence that mutually beneficial interactions between microbial cells are essential to the development of biofilms in the oral cavity. This review discusses the mutualistic partnerships that form between oral bacteria, and the contribution of interspecies communication to the formation of mixed microbial communities.