“…P. gingivalis PPAD (UniProt database [UP] access code Q9RQJ2 or GenBank entry WP_005873463.1 for NCBI gene tag PG_1424) was obtained through small-scale homologous overexpression as a secreted protein from plasmid-transformed P. gingivalis W83 PPAD-deletion mutant strain Δppad . Briefly, plasmid pT-COW, which confers resistance against tetracycline 36 , was used as expression vector, and plasmid derivatives encoding the wild type (wt) and a total of 18 PPAD point mutants (W 127 A, D 130 A, D 130 N, R 152 A, R 154 A, R 154 E, T 180 A, G 182 A, H 236 A, H 236 N, D 238 A, D 238 N, C 239 A, C 239 E, C 239 S, N 297 A, C 351 S, and C 351 A; see Table 1 ) were generated. For this, the wt gene sequence plus 1081 upstream base pairs and 267 downstream base pairs was amplified from P. gingivalis W83 genomic DNA with primers pTCowPPADf and pTCowPPADr (see Table 1 ), which contained recognition sequences for restriction endonucleases Nhe I and Sph I, respectively.…”