The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa produces multifunctional, polar, filamentous appendages termed type IV pili. Type IV pili are involved in colonization during infection, twitching motility, biofilm formation, bacteriophage infection, and natural transformation. Electrostatic surface analysis of modeled pilus fibers generated from P. aeruginosa strain PAK, K122-4, and KB-7 pilin...

Here we present an examination of type IV pilus genes associated with competence and twitching in the bacterium Acinetobacter baylyi (strain ADP1, BD413). We used bioinformatics to identify potential competence and twitching genes and their operons. We measured the competence and twitching phenotypes of the bioinformatically-identified genes. These results demonstrate that competence and twitch...

Type IV pili are long polymers located on the surface of a wide variety of bacterial cells, including the pathogenNeisseria meningitidis. They are responsible for a diverse range of functions, including adhesion, motility and natural transformation. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Imhaus and Duménil show that two minor pilins, PilX and PilV, exert some of their effects by changing mean surfa...

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains produce a type IV pilus named Longus. We identified a 16-gene cluster involved in the biosynthesis of Longus that has 57 to 95% identity at the protein level to CFA/III, another type IV pilus of ETEC. Alleles of the Longus structural subunit gene lngA demonstrate a diversity of 12 to 19% at the protein level with strong positive selection for poin...

A naturally occurring R factor with constitutive pilus synthesis is described which resembles the sex factor F in compatibility and in restricting coliphage T7. Unlike F, it is not cured during growth with acridine orange. Results suggest that the R factor produces repressor of pilus synthesis, to which the operator is insensitive (i(+)o(c)). In this respect it differs from both the F factor (i...

UNLABELLED Though the bacterial opportunist Enterococcus faecalis causes a myriad of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), including catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs), little is known about the virulence mechanisms that it employs. However, the endocarditis- and biofilm-associated pilus (Ebp), a member of the sortase-assembled pilus family, was shown to play a role in a mouse...

Type IV pili are long polymers located on the surface of a wide variety of bacterial cells, including the pathogenNeisseria meningitidis. They are responsible for a diverse range of functions, including adhesion, motility and natural transformation. In this issue of The EMBO Journal, Imhaus and Duménil show that two minor pilins, PilX and PilV, exert some of their effects by changing mean surfa...

Filamentous bacteriophages infecting gram-negative bacteria display tropism for a variety of pilus structures. However, the obligatory coreceptor of phage infection, postulated from genetic studies, has remained elusive. Here we identify the C-terminal domain of the periplasmic protein TolA as the coreceptor for infection of Escherichia coli by phage fd and the N-terminal domain of the phage mi...