RESUMO
The major outer-membrane proteins RagA and RagB of Porphyromonas gingivalis are considered to form a receptor complex functionally linked to TonB. In this study, P. gingivalis mutants with ragA, ragB or both deleted were constructed from strain W83 as the parent to examine the physiological and pathological functions of RagA and RagB. The double-deletion mutant completely lacked both RagA and RagB, whereas the DeltaragA mutant reduced RagB expression considerably and the DeltaragB mutant produced degraded RagA. Growth of the three mutants in a nutrient-rich medium and synthetic media containing digested protein as a unique nutrient source was similar to that of the parental strain; however, both the DeltaragA and DeltaragAB mutants exhibited very slow growth in a synthetic medium containing undigested, native protein, and the two mutants tended to lose their viability during experiments, although gingipain (protease) activities were unchanged in the mutants. A mouse model showed that the DeltaragB mutant had reduced virulence. Cell-surface labelling with biotin and dextran revealed that both RagA and RagB localized on the outermost cell surface. A cross-linking experiment using wild-type P. gingivalis showed that RagA and RagB were closely associated with each other. Furthermore, co-immunoprecipitation confirmed that RagA and RagB formed a protein-protein complex. These results suggest that physically associated RagA and RagB may stabilize themselves on the cell surface and function as active transporters of large degradation products of protein and in part as a virulence factor.
Assuntos
Proteínas de Bactérias/fisiologia , Deleção de Genes , Porphyromonas gingivalis/fisiologia , Porphyromonas gingivalis/patogenicidade , Adesinas Bacterianas/biossíntese , Sequência de Aminoácidos , Animais , Proteínas de Bactérias/análise , Proteínas de Bactérias/genética , Infecções por Bacteroidaceae , Parede Celular/química , Contagem de Colônia Microbiana , Meios de Cultura/química , Cisteína Endopeptidases/biossíntese , DNA Bacteriano/química , DNA Bacteriano/genética , Cisteína Endopeptidases Gingipaínas , Camundongos , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Viabilidade Microbiana/genética , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Porphyromonas gingivalis/química , Porphyromonas gingivalis/genética , Ligação Proteica , Análise de Sequência de DNA , Baço/microbiologia , VirulênciaRESUMO
Tannerella forsythensis, one of the important pathogens in periodontal disease, has a typical surface layer (S-layer) consisting of regularly arrayed subunits outside the outer membrane. The S-layer in T. forsythensis is suggested to be associated with haemagglutinating activity, adhesion and invasion of host cells; however, its precise functions have been unknown. ORFs encoding the major S-layer proteins (230 and 270 kDa) of T. forsythensis ATCC 43037, tfsA and tfsB, respectively, following the names in a recent report [Lee, S.-W., Sabet, M., Um, H. S., Yang, L., Kim, H. C. & Zhu, W. (2006). Gene 371, 102-111] were determined. To verify the function of the S-layer proteins, three mutants with tfsA, tfsB, or both deleted were successfully constructed by a PCR-based overlapping method. S-layer proteins were completely lost in the double mutant. The single-deletion mutants appeared to lose one of the 230 and 270 kDa proteins. Thin-section microscopy clearly revealed that the 230 and 270 kDa proteins composed the S-layer. Although the S-layer proteins may be weakly related to haemagglutinating activity, these proteins were highly responsible for adherence to human gingival epithelial cells (Ca9-22) and KB cells. These results suggest that the S-layer proteins in T. forsythensis play an important role in the initiation stage of oral infection including periodontal disease.
