Periodontal disease is a progressive inflammatory condition that is characterized by the reabsorption of alveolar bone, the destruction of connective tissue, and edentulism. It is caused by a dysbiosis in the oral microbiome as a result of a shift from a Gram-positive aerobic bacterial population, to one that becomes more Gram-negative and anaerobic. Treponema denticola is thought to drive this diseased state based on its role as a keystone periopathogen. A major component of T.denticola’s invasiveness is its motility, which allows the spirochete to penetrate and disseminate through tissues. This motility, which has been seen to be crucial to the invasiveness in other spirochetes through deletion studies, is often regulated by the second messenger, c-di-GMP. In this study, biochemical and biophysical assays were utilized to determine that the predicted diguanylate cyclase TDE0125 converts GTP to c-di-GMP. This elucidates further function of the c-di-GMP regulatory network in T. denticola.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-6676 |
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| Creators | Patel, Dhara T |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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