National Doctoral Programme in
Informational and Structural Biology

In most milieus bacteria form communities, biofilms, on surfaces and in liquid-gas interface. In humans, these biofilms protect bacteria from the host defense and antibiotics. Our research is concentrated on studying biofilm-host -interaction in a chronic oral infection, periodontitis. Our model bacterium, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, is a major pathogen in localized aggressive periodontitis, an infection that destroys the tooth supportive tissues. In particular we are interested how bacterial outer membrane proteins are involved in sensing the host response in inflammation, and how the inflammatory milieu changes the bacterial gene expression and virulence. In addition, we are studying bacterial outer membrane secretins, channel forming proteins, and their role for example in maintaining the genome stability of A. actinomycetemcomitans in mutational pressure. The research include molecular- and structural biology methods as well as tissue culture models to approach the complex problem in versatile ways. Our research will increase understanding about the chronic nature of periodontitis and about the host-microbe interaction in general.