Response of Porphyromonas gingivalis to heme limitation in continuous culture

Abstract

Porphyromonas gingivalis is an anaerobic, asaccharolytic, gram-negative bacterium that has essential requirements for both iron and protoporphyrin IX, which it preferentially obtains as heme. A combination of large-scale quantitative proteomic analysis using stable isotope labeling strategies and mass spectrometry, together with transcriptomic analysis using custom-made DNA microarrays, was used to identify changes in P. gingivalis W50 protein and transcript abundances on changing from heme-excess to heme-limited continuous culture. This approach identified 160 genes and 70 proteins that were differentially regulated by heme availability, with broad agreement between the transcriptomic and p..