Porphyromonas gingivalis is an anaerobic, asaccharolytic Gram-negative rod associated with chronic periodontitis. We have undertaken a proteomic study of the outer membrane of P. gingivalis strain W50 using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and peptide mass fingerprinting. Proteins were identified by reference to the pre-release genomic sequence of P. gingivalis available from The Institute for Genomic Research. Out of 39 proteins identified, five were TonB-linked outer membrane receptors, ten others were putative integral outer membrane proteins and four were putative lipoproteins. Pyroglutamate was found to be the N-terminal residue of seven of the proteins, and was predicted to be the N-terminal residue of 13 additional proteins. The RgpA, Kgp and HagA polyproteins were identified as fully processed domains in outer membranes prepared in the presence of proteinase inhibitors. Several domains were found to be C-terminally truncated 16-57 residues upstream from the N-terminus of the following domain, at a residue penultimate to a lysine. This pattern of C-terminal processing was not detected in a W50 strain isogenic mutant lacking the lysine-specific proteinase Kgp. Construction of another W50 isogenic mutant lacking the arginine-specific proteinases indicated that RgpB and/or RgpA were also involved in domain processing. The C-terminal adhesin of RgpA, designated RgpA27, together with RgpB and two newly identified proteins designated P27 and P59 were found to migrate on two-dimensional gels as vertical streaks at a molecular mass 13-42 kDa higher than that calculated from their gene sequences. The electrophoretic behaviour of these proteins, together with their immunoreactivity with a monoclonal antibody that recognizes lipopolysaccharide, is consistent with a modification that could anchor the proteins to the outer membrane.