Pilin assembly into type IV pili is required for virulence by bacterial pathogens that cause diseases such as cholera, pneumonia, gonorrhea, and meningitis. Crystal structures of soluble, N-terminally truncated pilin from Vibrio cholera toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) and full-length PAK pilin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa reveal a novel TCP fold, yet a shared architecture for the type IV pilins. I...

We consider the influence of realistic island diffusion rates to homoepitaxial growth on metallic surfaces using a recently developed rate equation model which describes growth in the submonolayer regime with hyperthermal deposition. To this end, we incorporate realistic size and temperature-dependent island diffusion coefficients for the case of homoepitaxial growth on Cu(100) and Cu(111) surf...

Gram-negative pathogens commonly exhibit adhesive pili on their surfaces that mediate specific attachment to the host. A major class of pili is assembled via the chaperone/usher pathway. Here, the structural basis for pilus fiber assembly and secretion performed by the outer membrane assembly platform--the usher--is revealed by the crystal structure of the translocation domain of the P pilus us...

From a collection of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) that recognize the native structure of the toxin-coregulated pilus of Vibrio cholerae, two protective MAbs (16.1 and 169.1) were used to localize the corresponding epitopes on the pilus. These MAbs were shown to specifically recognize the carboxyl half of the TcpA pilin subunit, as determined by their recognition of proteolytic fragments and hyb...

Type IV pili of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the Gram-negative etiologic agent of gonorrhea, facilitate colonization of the human host. Gonococcal PilT, a protein belonging to a large family of molecules sharing a highly conserved nucleotide binding domain motif, has been shown to be dispensable for organelle biogenesis but essential for twitching motility and competence for genetic transformation. H...

BACKGROUND The evolutionary history of several genes of the bacterial pathogen Streptococcus pyogenes strongly suggests an origin in another species, acquired via replacement of the counterpart gene (ortholog) following a recombination event. An example of orthologous gene replacement is provided by the nra/rofA locus, which encodes a key regulator of pilus gene transcription. Of biological imp...

The infectious ability of uropathogenic Escherichia coli relies on adhesive fibers, termed pili or fimbriae, that are expressed on the bacterial surface. Pili are multi-protein structures that are formed via a highly preserved assembly and secretion system called the chaperone-usher pathway. We have earlier reported that small synthetic compounds, referred to as pilicides, disrupt both type 1 a...

Neisseria meningitidis, a causative agent of meningitis and septicaemia, expresses type IV pili, a feature correlating with the uptake of exogenous DNA from the environment by natural transformation. The outer membrane complex PilQ, through which pili are extruded and retracted, has previously been shown to bind DNA in its pore region. In order to further elucidate how DNA is transported across...

Streptococcus pneumoniae, like many other Gram-positive bacteria, assembles long filamentous pili on their surface through which they adhere to host cells. Pneumococcal pili are formed by a backbone, consisting of the repetition of the major component RrgB, and two accessory proteins (RrgA and RrgC). Here we reconstruct by transmission electron microscopy and single particle image reconstructio...