Molecular mechanism for the spontaneous generation of pigmentless Porphyromonas gingivalis mutants
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 19, 2026

Porphyromonas gingivalis as a Model Organism for Assessing Interaction of Anaerobic Bacteria with Host Cells
Published on: December 17, 2015
1Department of Oral Biology, State University of New York, Buffalo, New York 14214, USA.
Abstract:
Porphyromonas gingivalis is one of the pathogens associated with periodontal diseases, and its protease activity has been implicated as an important virulence factor. Kgp is the major Lys-gingipain protease of P. gingivalis and appears to be involved not only in enzyme activity but also in hemagglutination and the pigmented phenotype due to heme accumulation and/or hemoglobin binding. However, little information concerning the molecular mechanism for the spontaneous generation of pigmentless P. gingivalis mutants is currently available. In this study, several spontaneous pigmentless mutants of P. gingivalis were isolated and characterized. The results revealed that a portion of the kgp gene had been deleted from the chromosomes of the pigmentless mutants. This deletion appears to result from recombination between the highly homologous DNA sequences encoding the adhesin domains of the tandemly arranged hagA and kgp genes on the chromosomes of P. gingivalis strains.
More Related Videos
08:57Identification of Novel Genes Associated with Alginate Production in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Using Mini-himar1 Mariner Transposon-mediated Mutagenesis
Published on: March 10, 2014
12:29Generation of Null Mutants to Elucidate the Role of Bacterial Glycosyltransferases in Bacterial Motility
Published on: March 11, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Evolution of New Traits in Microbes
Gene Regulation in Microbial Communities: Quorum Sensing
Spontaneous and Induced Mutations