the importance of the role played by bacteria in the pathogenesis of pulpal and apical disease has been established. one of the characteristics of apical periodontitis is apical bone resorption, which is due to apical immune response to bacterial infection. recently, novel bacterial complex lipid called phosphorylated dihydroceramides has been discovered to be of inflammatory activators. the ba...

For many decades, Escherichia coli was the main model organism for the study of bacterial membrane lipids. The results obtained served as a blueprint for membrane lipid biochemistry, but it is clear now that there is no such thing as a typical bacterial membrane lipid composition. Different bacterial species display different membrane compositions and even the membrane composition of cells belo...

Synthetic molecules that target specific lipids serve as powerful tools for understanding membrane biology and may also enable new applications in biotechnology and medicine. For example, selective recognition of bacterial lipids may give rise to novel antibiotics, as well as diagnostic methods for bacterial infection. Currently known lipid-binding molecules primarily rely on noncovalent intera...