A cosmid gene library of Actinomyces viscosus T14V was prepared in Escherichia coli to examine the expression of A. viscosus antigens and to gain insight into the structure of A. viscosus type 1 and type 2 fimbriae. Out of this library of 550 clones, 28 reacted in a colony immunoassay with antibodies against A. viscosus cells. The proteins responsible for these reactions were identified in thre...

F4(+) enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) strains cause diarrheal disease in neonatal and post-weaned piglets. Several different host receptors for F4 fimbriae have been described, with porcine aminopeptidase N (APN) reported most recently. The FaeG subunit is essential for the binding of the three F4 variants to host cells. Here we show in both yeast two-hybrid and pulldown assays that APN...

A hierarchical control of fimbrial gene expression limits laboratory grown cultures of Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium (S. typhimurium) to the production of type I fimbriae encoded by the fimAICDHF operon. Here we show that an unlikely culprit, namely the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) of a messenger (m)RNA, coordinated the regulation. Binding of CsrA to the 5'-UTR of the pefACDEF tran...

The presence of filamentous appendages distinct from flagella was first discovered in electron microscope preparations by Anderson (1949) and Houwink and van Iterson (1950). Duguid, Smith, Dempster, and Edmunds (1955) confirmed the existence of these structures and suggested the name 'fimbriae' for them; others have called them 'cilia' (Pershina and Vasilieva, 1960) and 'pili' (Brinton, 1959). ...

The strong immunogenicity of bacterial fimbriae results from their polymeric and proteinaceous nature, and the protective role of these immunogens in experimental or commercial vaccines is associated with their capacity to induce antiadhesive antibodies. Fimbria-mediated intestinal colonization by enteropathogens typically leads to similar antibody responses. The possibility of taking advantage...

Type 3 fimbriae are important adhesive filaments that assist Klebsiella pneumoniae to establish an infection. Different MrkD adhesin variants on the fimbriae are known to display distinct adherence capability for the bacteria to bind extracellular matrix proteins, although the difference has not been determined physically. For this reason, the adhesive force between type 3 fimbriae and collagen...

Type 1 fimbriae from Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora and mannose-resistant fimbriae from Erwinia rhapontici were purified and characterized. The type 1 fimbrillin had an apparent molecular weight of 16,500; that of the mannose-resistant fimbrillin was 18,000. The amino-terminal amino acid sequences of the two fimbrillins were related, but tryptic peptide maps showed significant differences...

In a previous report (Y. Ohmori, S. Hanazawa, S. Amano, T. Miyoshi, K. Hirose, and S. Kitano, infect. Immun. 55:947-954, 1987), we showed that human gingival fibroblasts spontaneously produce thymocyte-activating factor (FTAF), which stimulates mitogen-induced thymocyte proliferation. In the present study, we examined the effect of Bacteroides gingivalis fimbriae on FTAF production by the cells...

Porcine neonatal diarrhea and postweaning diarrhea caused by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) result in significant morbidity and mortality and are economically important diseases of pigs.1 Secretory diarrhea associated with ETEC infection is mediated by any of several enterotoxins, including heat labile enterotoxin (LT), heat-stable enterotoxin-a (STa), and heat-stable enterotoxin-b (ST...