Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis) can trigger an inflammatory condition leading to the destruction of periodontal tissues. However P. gingivalis LPS and its fimbriae (FimA) play different roles compared with the live bacteria in the context of intracellular molecule induction and cytokine secretion. To elucidate whether this difference results from different signaling pathways in host im...

Porphyromonas gingivalis, a periodontal pathogen, has the ability to lyse erythrocytes. The hemolytic activity of P. gingivalis A7436 was purified as a 45-kDa protein from the culture supernatant of a 3-days old culture using nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid chromatography. Erythrocytes treated with purified P. gingivalis hemolysin showed the presence of pores and extracellular debris by scanning e...

Porphyromonas gingivalis and Treponema denticola are strongly associated with chronic periodontitis. These bacteria have been co-localized in subgingival plaque and demonstrated to exhibit symbiosis in growth in vitro and synergistic virulence upon co-infection in animal models of disease. Here we show that during continuous co-culture a P. gingivalis:T. denticola cell ratio of 6∶1 was maintain...

Porphyromonas gingivalis has been identified as one of the major periodontal pathogens. Activity-directed fractionation and purification processes were employed to identify the anti-inflammatory active compounds using heat-killed P. gingivalis-stimulated human monocytic THP-1 cells in vitro. Five major fractions were collected from the ethanol/ethyl acetate extract of wild bitter melon (Momordi...

Isogenic mutants of Porphyromonas gingivalis which differ in the expression of fimbriae were used to examine the contribution of fimbriae in invasion of a human oral epithelial cell line (KB). At a multiplicity of infection of 100, the wild-type P. gingivalis strains 33277, 381, and A7436 exhibited adherence efficiencies of 5.5, 0.11, and 5.0%, respectively, and invasion efficiencies of 0.15, 0...

Osteolytic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, osteomyelitis, and periodontitis, are usually associated with bacterial infections. However, the precise mechanisms by which bacteria induce bone loss still remain unclear. Evidence exists that Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling regulates both inflammation and bone metabolism and that the receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) and its rec...

Many bacterial infections involve polymicrobial communities in which constituent organisms are synergistically pathogenic. Periodontitis, a commonly occurring chronic inflammatory disorder, is induced by multispecies bacterial communities. The periodontal keystone pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis and the accessory pathogen Streptococcus gordonii exhibit polymicrobial synergy in animal models o...

BACKGROUND Infectious diseases have emerged as potential risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Epidemiological studies support a connection between periodontal disease, a chronic inflammatory disease of the supporting tissues of the teeth, and CVD. METHODS AND RESULTS To directly test the connection between periodontal disease and atherosclerosis, apoE-/- mice were orally challenged ...

Our previous animal studies showed that maternal Porphyromonas gingivalis infection in a subcutaneous chamber is associated with hepatic and uterine translocation, as well as systemic induction of maternal inflammatory responses, both of which were associated with fetal growth restriction (FGR). However, P. gingivalis-challenged dams had fetuses with either FGR (2 standard deviations below mean...

Cohesive interactions between Porphyromonas gingivalis and plaque-forming bacteria, such as Streptococcus oralis, are considered to play an important role in the colonization of P. gingivalis in periodontal sites. Although P. gingivalis fimbriae have been reported to mediate coaggregation with S. oralis, the S. oralis molecule involved has not been identified. We identified the coadhesin of S. ...