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Infection and Immunity, November 1999, p. 5792-5798, Vol. 67, No. 11
Department of Oral Biology and Periodontal
Disease Research Center,
Received 26 May 1999/Returned for modification 1 July 1999/Accepted 30 July 1999
There is an emerging paradigm shift from coronary heart
disease having a purely hereditary and nutritional causation to
possibly having an infectious etiology. Recent epidemiological studies have shown a correlation between periodontal disease and coronary heart
disease. However, to date, there is minimal information as to the
possible disease mechanisms of this association. It is our hypothesis
that invasion of the coronary artery cells by oral bacteria may start
and/or exacerbate the inflammatory response in atherosclerosis. Since a
few periodontal pathogens have been reported to invade oral epithelial
tissues, we tested the ability of three putative periodontal
pathogens
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Invasion of Human Coronary Artery Cells by Periodontal
Pathogens
Eikenella corrodens, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Prevotella intermedia
to invade
human coronary artery endothelial cells and coronary artery smooth
muscle cells. In this study we demonstrate by an antibiotic protection
assay and electron microscopy that specific species and strains invade coronary artery cells at a significant level. Actin polymerization and
eukaryotic protein synthesis in metabolically active cells were
required since the corresponding inhibitors nearly abrogated invasion.
Many intracellular P. gingivalis organisms were seen to be
present in multimembranous vacuoles resembling autophagosomes by
morphological analysis. This is the first report of oral microorganisms invading human primary cell cultures of the vasculature.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Oral Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32608. Phone:
(352) 846-0770. Fax: (352) 392-2361. E-mail:
apfox{at}dental.ufl.edu.
Infection and Immunity, November 1999, p. 5792-5798, Vol. 67, No. 11
0019-9567/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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