Group B streptococci (GBS) are a leading cause of neonatal sepsis and meningitis. GBS adhere to fibronectin when it is attached to a solid phase. We isolated a Tn917 transposon mutant, COH1-GT1, which shows decreased adherence to fibronectin. COH1-GT1 also shows decreased adherence to and invasion of respiratory epithelial cells in vitro and decreased virulence in vivo. COH1-GT1 contains a Tn91...

Native 30-kD antigen, also known as alpha antigen, is a fibronectin-binding protein that is secreted by live Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This antigen may play an important biological role in the host-parasite interaction since it elicits delayed type hypersensitivity response and protective immunity in vivo and T lymphocyte blastogenesis and IFN-gamma production in vitro. In the present study, ...

PURPOSE To determine whether trabecular meshwork-inducible glucocorticoid response/myocilin (TIGR/MYOC) protein associates with the extracellular matrix (ECM) of human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells. METHODS The extracellular localization of TIGR/MYOC was examined by immunofluorescence microscopy in HTM cultures treated with and without dexamethasone and ascorbate and in a transformed HTM ce...

A 140,000-D protein cell surface antigen (140k) complex has been implicated in fibronectin-mediated cell-substratum attachment. We have used three different experimental systems to evaluate the hypothesis that this 140k complex can function as a fibronectin receptor. A monoclonal antibody that binds to the 140k complex specifically inhibits the direct binding of 3H-labeled 75,000-D fibronectin ...

Medical implants, like cardiovascular devices, improve the quality of life for countless individuals but may become infected with bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus. Such infections take the form of a biofilm, a structured community of bacterial cells adherent to the surface of a solid substrate. Every biofilm begins with an attractive force or bond between bacterium and substratum. We used at...

Group A streptococci (GAS, Streptococcus pyogenes) and Group G streptococci (GGS, Streptococcus dysgalactiae ssp. equisimilis) adhere to and invade host cells by binding to fibronectin. The fibronectin-binding protein SfbI from GAS acts as an invasin by using a caveolae-mediated mechanism. In the present study we have identified a fibronectin-binding protein, GfbA, from GGS, which functions as ...

Changes in the conformational state of human plasma fibronectin and several of its fragments were studied by fluorescence emission, intrinsic fluorescence polarization and c.d. spectroscopy under conditions of guanidinium chloride-and temperature-induced unfolding. Fragments were chosen to represent all three types of internal structural homology in the protein. Low concentration (less than 2 M...

A previously unidentified 120-kDa protein was detected in Streptococcus mutans strain Z1 and was involved in the cold-agglutination of the strain. We have identified the gene, designated cnm, as being involved in the agglutination of strain Z1 following random mutagenesis. The amino acid sequence of the deduced Cnm protein exhibited high similarity to those of collagen-binding adhesins from sta...