%0 Journal Article
%T The core genome of the anaerobic oral pathogenic bacterium Porphyromonas gingivalis
%A Jorg Brunner
%A Floyd RA Wittink
%A Martijs J Jonker
%A Mark de Jong
%A Timo M Breit
%A Marja L Laine
%A Johannes J de Soet
%A Wim Crielaard
%J BMC Microbiology
%D 2010
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2180-10-252
%X Our analyses allowed us to call aberrant genes, absent genes and divergent regions in each of the test strains. A conserved core P. gingivalis genome was described, which consists of 80% of the analyzed genes from the sequenced W83 strain. The percentage of aberrant genes between the test strains and control strain W83 was 8.2% to 13.7%. Among the aberrant genes many CPS biosynthesis genes were found. Most other virulence related genes could be found in the conserved core genome. Comparing highly virulent strains with less virulent strains indicates that hmuS, a putative CobN/Mg chelatase involved in heme uptake, may be a more relevant virulence determinant than previously expected. Furthermore, the description of the 39 W83-specific genes could give more insight in why this strain is more virulent than others.Analyses of the genetic content of the P. gingivalis capsular serotypes allowed the description of a P. gingivalis core genome. The high resolution data from three types of analysis of triplicate hybridization experiments may explain the higher divergence between P. gingivalis strains than previously recognized.Periodontitis is a chronic destructive infectious disease of the tooth-supporting tissues. It is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases in the world. With percentages of moderate disease ranging from just below 20% in an age group of 30 to 40 year-olds in Swedish and Norwegian studies to even up to 38% of severe cases in the United States in an on average 75 year-old male population [1-3]. Besides high prevalence also links to systemic diseases have been described. Periodontitis has been associated with, amongst others, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus and rheumatoid arthritis [4-7].Periodontitis leads to loss of sound teeth as supporting bone and connective tissue are slowly degraded as a result of an exaggerated host immune response triggered against a polymicrobial biofilm [8].In the oral cavity around 7000 species can be detected, i
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2180/10/252