Journal article
Treponema denticola biofilm-induced expression of a bacteriophage, toxin-antitoxin systems and transposases
HL Mitchell, SG Dashper, DV Catmull, RA Paolini, SM Cleal, N Slakeski, KH Tan, EC Reynolds
Microbiology | Published : 2010
Abstract
Treponema denticola is an oral spirochaete that has been strongly associated with chronic periodontitis. The bacterium exists as part of a dense biofilm (subgingival dental plaque) accreted to the tooth. To determine T. denticola gene products important for persistence as a biofilm we developed a continuous-culture biofilm model and conducted a genome-wide transcriptomic analysis of biofilm and planktonic cells. A total of 126 genes were differentially expressed with a fold change of 1.5 or greater. This analysis identified the upregulation of putative prophage genes in the T. denticola 35405 genome. Intact bacteriophage particles were isolated from T. denticola and circular phage DNA was de..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. We thank P. Scott Chandry for his advice and help with the manuscript. Sample preparation and electron microscope imaging were carried out by Simon Crawford of the Electron and Microscopic Unit at The School of Botany, The University of Melbourne.