Figure 5.
Aggregation of UASpec and VicKP222A. (A) Aggregation of UASpec and VicKP222A in the presence of fresh unstimulated whole saliva (WS). Points are means of triplicates from a representative experiment repeated 3 times. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.005, and ****P < 0.001 of Student’s t test using Prism 7.0 (GraphPad Software). Error bars indicate standard deviations. (B) Transcriptional analysis of spaP in derivative strains of Streptococcus mutans. Data are presented as mean ± SD (****P < 0.001 of Student’s t test using Prism 7.0). (C) Representative Western blot analysis of SpaP levels in culture supernatant in mutant strains. The whole-cell lysates of each strain are shown below the Western blotting results as the control. M: Marker; 1: UASpec; 2: VicKP222A; 3: UASpec-His, the mutant whose SpaP protein bound with His-tag in UASpec strain; 4: VicKP222A-His, the mutant whose SpaP protein bound with His-tag in VicKP222A strain.