**Preface to "Oral Microbial Communities and Oral Health"**

The oral microbiome has a great impact on human health. Next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics provide us valuable information on the role of oral health in overall heath and diseases. The research field has propagated from infectious diseases to non-communicable disease. The oral microbiome changes throughout the life stage, with an effect on dental diseases. Thus, we need to identify the pathogenic oral microbiome, not only for oral disease but also for systemic diseases. However, at this stage, the information regarding healthy or pathogenic oral microbiome has not been clearly identified. In this book, information regarding the current knowledge on and advancement of research into oral microbiomes is covered. The subjects covered range from children to centenarian. The diseases covered are stain, dental caries, periodontal disease, tooth malformation, and systemic disease. The information in this book may be useful, not only for researchers and clinicians of oral health, but a wide range of health professionals as well as life science researchers.

> **Yoshiaki Nomura** *Editor*
