Bacteria form surface-attached communities, known as biofilms, which are central to bacterial biology and how they affect us. Although surface-attached bacteria often experience strong chemical gradients, it remains unclear whether single cells can effectively perform chemotaxis on surfaces. Here we use microfluidic chemical gradients and massively parallel automated tracking to study the behav...

Bacterial cell-surface display systems coupled with quantitative screening methods offer the potential to expand protein engineering capabilities. To more fully exploit this potential, a unique bacterial surface display scaffold was engineered to display peptides more efficiently from the surface exposed C- and N-termini of a circularly permuted outer membrane protein. Using directed evolution,...

It has been known for decades that bacteria locomote over surfaces, but the mechanisms that power motility have been unclear. Recent experiments have begun to explain two modes of surface motility. Twitching or social gliding motility is powered by the retraction of type IV pili. Adventurous gliding motility is powered by the rearward secretion of carbohydrate slime. In both cases, cell movemen...

ABSTRACT The organization and presentation of agricultural data are greatly facilitated by databases that specially designed to allow ease entry organized display. The Pili knowledge bank together with its user-friendly interface was implemented showcase the collected from different cultivars, enabling users around world see prospects potentials. This study, in general, supports responds cha...

BACKGROUND Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus mitis, and Streptococcus sanguinis are members of the Mitis group of streptococci and agents of oral biofilm, dental plaque and infective endocarditis, disease processes that involve bacteria-bacteria and bacteria-host interactions. Their close relative, the human pathogen S. pneumoniae uses pilus-islet 2 (PI-2)-encoded pili to facilitate adhesion ...

It has been known for decades that bacteria locomote over surfaces, but the mechanisms that power motility have been unclear. Recent experiments have begun to explain two modes of surface motility. Twitching or social gliding motility is powered by the retraction of type IV pili. Adventurous gliding motility is powered by the rearward secretion of carbohydrate slime. In both cases, cell movemen...

Type IV pili are surface-exposed filaments and bacterial virulence factors, represented by the Tfpa and Tfpb types, which assemble via specific machineries. The Tfpb group is further divided into seven variants, linked to heterogeneity in the assembly machineries. Here we focus on PilO2(Bp), a protein component of the Tfpb R64 thin pilus variant assembly machinery from the pathogen Burkholderia...

Pili are proteinaceous polymers of linked pilins that protrude from the cell surface of many bacteria and often mediate adherence and virulence. We investigated a set of 20 Bacteroidia pilins from the human microbiome whose structures and mechanism of assembly were unknown. Crystal structures and biochemical data revealed a diverse protein superfamily with a common Greek-key β sandwich fold wit...

Acinetobacter baumannii is a nosocomial pathogen that has a considerable ability to survive in the hospital environment partly due to its capacity to form biofilms. The first step in the process of establishing an infection is adherence of the bacteria to target cells. Chaperone-usher pili assembly systems are involved in pilus biogenesis pathways that play an important role in adhesion to host...

Types 1 and P pili are prototypical bacterial cell-surface appendages playing essential roles in mediating adhesion of bacteria to the urinary tract. These pili, assembled by the chaperone-usher pathway, are polymers of pilus subunits assembling into two parts: a thin, short tip fibrillum at the top, mounted on a long pilus rod. The rod adopts a helical quaternary structure and is thought to pl...