What do 'omic technologies have to offer periodontal clinical practice in the future?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Periodontal diseases are the most common chronic inflammatory diseases of humans and a major cause of tooth loss. Inflammatory periodontitis is also a complex multifactorial disease involving many cell types, cell products and interactions. It is associated with a dysregulated inflammatory response, which fails to resolve, and which also fails to re-establish a beneficial periodontal microbiota. There is a rich history of biomarker research within the field of periodontology, but exemplary improvements in analytical platform technologies offer exciting opportunities for discovery. These include the 'omic technologies, such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics, which provide information on global scales that can match the complexity of the disease. This narrative review focuses on the recent advances made in in vivo human periodontal research by use of 'omic technologies. MATERIAL AND METHODS The Medline database was searched to identify articles currently available on 'omic technologies with regard to periodontal research. RESULTS One hundred and sixty-one articles focusing on biomarkers of and 'omic advances in periodontal research were analysed for their contributions to the understanding of periodontal diseases. CONCLUSION The data generated by the use of 'omic technologies have huge potential to inform paradigm shifts in our understanding of periodontal diseases, but data management, analysis and interpretation require a thoughtful and systematic bioinformatics approach, to ensure meaningful conclusions can be made.