SummaryPorphyromonas gingivalis can synthesize both A-LPS and O-LPS lipopolysaccharides, which contain anionic O-polysaccharides and conventional O-polysaccharides, respectively. A-LPS can anchor virulence proteins to the cell surface, so elucidating the mechanism of A-LPS synthesis is important for understanding the pathogenicity of this bacterium. To identify the genes involved in LPS synthesis, we focused on uncharacterized genes encoding the glycosyltransferases, PGN_0361, PGN_1239, PGN_1240 and PGN_1668, which were tentatively named gtfC, gtfD, gtfE and gtfF, respectively, and characterized their mutants. We found that disruption of gtfC and gtfF resulted in A-LPS deficiency. In addition, a gtfD mutant had abnormal A-LPS synthesis, and a gtfE mutant exhibited a rough-type LPS that possesses a short oligosaccharide with lipid A-core. We then constructed a gtfC and gtfD double mutant, because their amino acid sequences were very similar, and this mutant similarly possessed a rough-type LPS.Cross-complementation analysis revealed that the GtfD protein is a functional homologue of the Escherichia coli WbbL protein, which is a rhamnosyltransferase. These results suggested that the GtfE protein is essential for the synthesis of both O-LPS and A-LPS, and that GtfC and GtfD proteins may work together to synthesize the two kinds of LPS. In addition, the GtfF protein was essential for A-LPS synthesis, although this may be achieved in a strain-specific manner.
K E Y W O R D Sbacterial surface antigen, periodontal disease, pigmentation, virulence
| INTRODUCTIONPorphyromonas gingivalis is an etiological agent of chronic periodontitis.1 It is an asaccharolytic bacterium, and secretes various proteases that digest proteins to gain energy. The gingipains, which consist of arginine-specific proteases (RgpA and RgpB) and a lysine-specific protease (Kgp), are considered to be major virulence factors in P. gingivalis. Previous studies on P. gingivalis strain W50 revealed that the conventional O-polysaccharide consists of a tetrasaccharide repeating unit of