Section of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry, The Ohio State University, 3185 Postle Hall, 305 W. Twelfth Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Infect Immun. 2011 Jan;79(1):439-48. doi: 10.1128/IAI.00784-10. Epub 2010 Nov 1.
Porphyromonas gingivalis has been implicated in the etiology of adult periodontitis. In this study, we examined the viability of Drosophila melanogaster as a new model for examining P. gingivalis-host interactions. P. gingivalis (W83) infection of Drosophila resulted in a systemic infection that killed in a dose-dependent manner. Differences in the virulence of several clinically prevalent P. gingivalis strains were observed in the Drosophila killing model, and the results correlated well with studies in mammalian infection models and human epidemiologic studies. P. gingivalis pathobiology in Drosophila did not result from uncontrolled growth of the bacterium in the Drosophila hemolymph (blood) or overt damage to Drosophila tissues. P. gingivalis killing of Drosophila was multifactorial, involving several bacterial factors that are also involved in virulence in mammals. The results from this study suggest that many aspects of P. gingivalis pathogenesis in mammals are conserved in Drosophila, and thus the Drosophila killing model should be useful for characterizing P. gingivalis-host interactions and, potentially, polymicrobe-host interactions.
牙龈卟啉单胞菌与成人牙周炎的病因有关。在这项研究中，我们研究了黑腹果蝇作为研究牙龈卟啉单胞菌-宿主相互作用的新模型的可行性。牙龈卟啉单胞菌（W83）感染果蝇导致全身性感染，且呈剂量依赖性致死。在果蝇杀伤模型中观察到几种临床常见牙龈卟啉单胞菌菌株的毒力差异，其结果与哺乳动物感染模型和人类流行病学研究的结果非常吻合。在果蝇中，牙龈卟啉单胞菌的病理生物学不是由其在果蝇血淋巴（血液）中的不受控制生长或对果蝇组织的明显损伤引起的。牙龈卟啉单胞菌杀伤果蝇是多因素的，涉及到几种也与哺乳动物毒力有关的细菌因子。这项研究的结果表明，哺乳动物中许多牙龈卟啉单胞菌发病机制的方面在果蝇中是保守的，因此，果蝇杀伤模型应该有助于表征牙龈卟啉单胞菌-宿主相互作用，并且可能有助于多微生物-宿主相互作用。
