The affinity of the PIII binding was determined by plotting the mean fluorescence intensity versus the protein concentration. The Kd value, defined as PIII concentration able to saturate 50% of putative receptors, was estimated in the Vadimezan chemical structure order of 1.5×10-7 M (Figure 4B). The binding of PIII protein to endocervical and urethral cells had a similar trend, showing the higher degree of association at 1 μM (Figure 4C). The unrelated hypothetical protein NG0694 of N. gonorrhoeae, used as negative control in the assay, was unable to bind all the cell lines tested (data not shown). Figure 4 Binding of purified recombinant PIII protein to epithelial cells. A. Ectocervical cells were incubated for 1 h

at 37°C with increasing concentrations of the purified PIII protein (range 2 nM-4.2 μM). The binding was analysed by FACS using mouse anti-PIII antibodies and an R-Phycoerythrin-conjugated AZD5582 clinical trial secondary antibody. The values are reported as net mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). B. Saturation curve of PIII binding to ectocervical cells. Analysis was performed on data reported in A. The K d value was calculated as the PIII concentration that determines the saturation of 50% of the receptors

present on the cells. C. Representative flow cytometry profiles of the binding of 1 μM PIII to ectocervical, endocervical and urethral cells. Grey line profiles represent the cells incubated with the primary and secondary antibodies in absence of the PIII protein. PIII is involved in adhesion of N. gonorrhoeae to human immortalized cervical and urethral cells To verify whether the ability of PIII to bind epithelial cells as purified protein was relevant also in the context of the viable microorganism, we performed infection assays and compared the ability of the F62 wild-type and the F62ΔpIII strains to adhere to ectocervical, endocervical and urethral cells previously described. Cells were infected with wild-type and F62ΔpIII strains for 3 hours and, after cellular lysis, total cell-associated bacteria were counted by plating. Since the level of gonococcal invasion is

very low in piliated strains, the number of total bacteria collected was considered to be representative of the number of bacteria adhering to the cell surface. Results reported in Figure 5A, show a decrease in bacterial association to all three epithelial ADAMTS5 cell lines for the pIII-deficient strain with a more pronounced effect on cervical cells (≈ 6–8 fold reduction) than on urethral cells (2.5-fold reduction). These data were confirmed by immunofluorescence confocal microscopy analysis, showing a larger number wild-type bacteria associated to ectocervical cells compared to ΔpIII strain (Figure 5C). Figure 5 Adhesion (A) and invasion (B) of F62 wild-type (black columns) and F62Δ pIII (white columns) strains to ectocervical, endocervical and urethral cells. Cells were infected for 3 hours at an MOI of 100:1.