Epigenetics and Periodontal Disease

Severe periodontitis is the 6th most prevalent disease worldwide with an overall prevalence of 11.2% and around 743 million people affected.The relevance of microorganisms in dental plaque as well as plaque''s pivotal role in the etiopathogenesis of periodontal disease is widely understood. As a result oral infection control is essential in clinical practice.it has been proposed that genetics and epigenetics can confer ‘healthy'' ageing and studies have ranked genes with the strongest correlation with longer lifespan some of which are immune system genes. As a result elderly people are more susceptible to a variety of autoimmune infectious and inflammatory illnesses such as periodontitisIn both academic and commercial sectors scientists are waking up to the enormous impact of epigenetics on human health. Epigenetics also has new frontiers in dentistry; epigenetic research in dental sector mainly includes periodontium and dental pulp cells.In periodontal disease research epigenetics is a very new concept. This occurrence could reveal a previously unknown relationship between genetics environment and disease (nature and nurture).