Filifactor alocis Has Virulence Attributes That Can Enhance Its Persistence under Oxidative Stress Conditions and Mediate Invasion of Epithelial Cells by Porphyromonas gingivalis
- 1 October 2011
- journal article
- Published by American Society for Microbiology in Infection and Immunity
- Vol. 79 (10), 3872-3886
- https://doi.org/10.1128/iai.05631-11
Abstract
Filifactor alocis , a Gram-positive anaerobic rod, is one of the most abundant bacteria identified in the periodontal pockets of periodontitis patients. There is a gap in our understanding of its pathogenicity and ability to interact with other periodontal pathogens. To evaluate the virulence potential of F. alocis and its ability to interact with Porphyromonas gingivalis W83, several clinical isolates of F. alocis were characterized. F. alocis showed nongingipain protease and sialidase activities. In silico analysis revealed the molecular relatedness of several virulence factors from F. alocis and P. gingivalis . In contrast to P. gingivalis , F. alocis was relatively resistant to oxidative stress and its growth was stimulated under those conditions. Biofilm formation was significantly increased in coculture. There was an increase in adherence and invasion of epithelial cells in coculture compared with P. gingivalis or F. alocis monocultures. In those epithelial cells, endocytic vesicle-mediated internalization was observed only during coculture. The F. alocis clinical isolate had an increased invasive capacity in coculture with P. gingivalis compared to the ATCC 35896 strain. In addition, there was variation in the proteomes of the clinical isolates compared to the ATCC 35896 strain. Hypothetical proteins and those known to be important virulence factors in other bacteria were identified. These results indicate that F. alocis has virulence properties that may enhance its ability to survive and persist in the periodontal pocket and may play an important role in infection-induced periodontal disease.Keywords
This publication has 63 references indexed in Scilit:
- Sialidase and Sialoglycoproteases Can Modulate Virulence in Porphyromonas gingivalisInfection and Immunity, 2011
- CDD: a Conserved Domain Database for the functional annotation of proteinsNucleic Acids Research, 2010
- The Human Oral MicrobiomeJournal of Bacteriology, 2010
- A Novel Sialic Acid Utilization and Uptake System in the Periodontal Pathogen Tannerella forsythiaJournal of Bacteriology, 2010
- Bacterial invasion of epithelial cells and spreading in periodontal tissuePeriodontology 2000, 2009
- Mutualistic Biofilm Communities Develop with Porphyromonas gingivalis and Initial, Early, and Late Colonizers of EnamelJournal of Bacteriology, 2009
- Sialic Acid ( N -Acetyl Neuraminic Acid) Utilization by Bacteroides fragilis Requires a Novel N -Acetyl Mannosamine EpimeraseJournal of Bacteriology, 2009
- The Ribosomal Database Project: improved alignments and new tools for rRNA analysisNucleic Acids Research, 2008
- probeBase--an online resource for rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes: new features 2007Nucleic Acids Research, 2006
- Adherence of Brucella to human epithelial cells and macrophages is mediated by sialic acid residuesCellular Microbiology, 2004