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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Periodontal Res. 2021 Aug 9;56(6):1046–1057. doi: 10.1111/jre.12918

FIGURE 5.

FIGURE 5

Live P.ginigvalis impairs gingival epithelial barrier function through a cysteine protease-mediated mechanism. In a transwell system, FITC dye was loaded onto the upper wells where confluent HEGPs had been seeded. Those cells were treated with live or heat-killed P.ginigvalis or P.ginigvalis in the presence of Leupeptin, a cysteine protease, for 5 h. We observed significantly more FITC dye migrating to the lower bottom wells from HGEPs treated with live P.ginigvalis at 109 CFU/ml but not P.ginigvalis at 108 CFU/ml, suggesting a dosage response of P.ginigvalis in disruption of epithelial barrier function. Heat-killed P.ginigvalis at 109 CFU/ml or leupeptin (0.25 mM) plus live P.ginigvalis at 109 CFU/ml had no significant impact on the dye exclusion. Error bars represent standard deviations. * indicates p < .05