FIG 4.

P. gingivalis and its gingipains and fimbrial mutants upregulate ETS1 in AoSMCs. Quantitative real-time PCR results demonstrate relative transcription levels of ETS1 in AoSMCs stimulated with wild-type ATCC 33277 and W50 and the corresponding W50 gingipain mutants (E8 and K1A) at an MOI of 10 for 2 h, 8 h, 16 h, 24 h, and 48 h (A), with wild-type 381 and its corresponding fimbrial mutants (DPG3 and KRX178) of P. gingivalis for 24 h (B), or with TNF for 24 h and 48 h (C). All results were normalized to the gene expression level of the GAPDH housekeeping gene. Statistically significant differences for LPS and wild-type P. gingivalis strain 381 are compared to the negative control. For fimbrial mutants, statistically significant differences are compared to the group Control+EM. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.005; ***, P < 0.0001. (A) n = 5; (B) n = 4; (C) n = 7.