Periodontal disease is one of the most common (inflammatory) diseases nowadays. Responsible organisms for the development of the disease are periodontal bacteria, such as Tannerella forsythia and Porphiromonas gingivalis. To investigate new possibilities in diagnosis and treatment of periodontal disease, we extracted lipids from T. forsythia and P. gingivalis and performed lipidomic analysis. The results showed the presence of several isoforms of the lipid ceramide phosphoethanolamine. This lipid is almost absent in mammalian membranes; therefore, it could be used for detecting pariodontal bacteria as their membranes contain ceramide phosphoethanolamine. On the other hand, proteins from the aegerolysin family emerged as suitable molecules for labeling ceramide phosphoethanolamine. Therefore, we have used aegerolysin erylysin A and successfully confirmed the presence of ceramide phosphoethanolamine in lipid extracts of bacteria T. forsythia and P. gingivalis. The binding of erylysin A to vesicles composed of total lipid extracts from T. forsythia and P. gingivalis was also confirmed with the permeabilization test by using erylysin A and its protein partner pleurotolysin B. Based on the obtained results we can conclude that erylysin A is a promising molecule for detection of ceramide phosphoethanolamine in lipid vesicles obtained from the total lipid extracts from periodontal bacteria P. gingivalis and T. forsythia. In combination with pleurotolysin B, erilysin A could also represent a potential solution for the treatment of periodontal disease.
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