Fig. 4

Bone loss in response to oral challenge with live P. gingivalis. Healthy suspensions of live P. gingivalis were mixed with CMC and brushed onto the gingival tissues of dual-reporter B6.DR1 mice. Legs were subjected to μCT analysis. a Proximal distal view of trabecular bone from mice sacrificed 1 or 16 days following treatment with P. gingivalis relative to those from untreated mice. b Orthogonal gray-scale images of femurs (not to scale). c Measurements of bone volume, bone volume fraction (bone volume/tissue volume), and trabecular thickness (BV, BV/TV, and Tb.th respectively) for trabecular bone and mean cross-sectional tissue area for cortical bone. Regions of interest used to calculate these values are indicated in b. d Flow cytometric analysis of cervical lymph nodes from corresponding mice at the time of sacrifice. Results expressed as mean percentage of CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cells expressing the IL-17F^mrfp (red) and Foxp3^gfp (green) reporter constructs. e Mean alveolar bone density in mice treated with P. gingivalis or left untreated (N = 3/group, *p < 0.05). Error bars in c = SEM; error bars in e = SD. GFP green fluorescent protein, Pg Porphyromonas gingivalis, ROI region of interest (Color figure online)