Fig. 4

Adhesion assays for T. vaginalis and Tet. gallinarum on vaginal epithelial cells. a Overexpression of specific Pmp and BspA proteins increases the adherence of the low-infective T1 strain to vaginal epithelial cells (VECs). Example pictures for every assay are shown on the top where each white or green dot represents one adhering parasite. Compared to the T1 wt expression of the candidate Pmp (TVAG_212570 and TVAG_140850) and BspA (TVAG_240680) proteins significantly increased the number of attached T. vaginalis cells. The highly virulent FMV1 wt strain and malic enzyme (TVAG_183790) were used as a positive and negative control, respectively. Adhesion assays were performed nine times independently and for each candidate a total of 108 pictures were analyzed. T-tests were performed for the analysis of statistical significance compared to T. vaginalis wildtype strain T1 (***P < 0.0001, **P < 0.001, *P < 0.05). b The expression of TVAG_140850 (Pmp) and TVAG_240680 (BspA) also significantly increases the ability of the bird infecting pathogen Tet. gallinarum M3 wt to adhere to human host cells. Adhesion assay was performed three times independently and for each candidate a total of 36 pictures were analyzed. T-tests were performed for the analysis of statistical significance compared to Tet. gallinarum wildtype strain M3 (***P < 0.0001, **P < 0.001, *P < 0.05)