The in situ stimulation of Fe(III) oxide reduction by Geobacter bacteria leads to the concomitant precipitation of hexavalent uranium [U(VI)] from groundwater. Despite its promise for the bioremediation of uranium contaminants, the biological mechanism behind this reaction remains elusive. Because Fe(III) oxide reduction requires the expression of Geobacter's conductive pili, we evaluated their...

N-Glycosylation is a post-translational modification common to all three domains of life. In many archaea, the oligosacharyltransferase (AglB)-dependent N-glycosylation of flagellins is required for flagella assembly. However, whether N-glycosylation is required for the assembly and/or function of the structurally related archaeal type IV pili is unknown. Here, we show that of six Haloferax vol...

The hair follicle is a complete mini-organ that lends itself as a model for investigation of a variety of complex biological phenomena, including stem cell biology, organ regeneration and cloning.  The arrector pili muscle inserts into the hair follicle at the level of the bulge- the epithelial stem cell niche.  The arrector pili muscle has been previously thought to be merely a bystander and n...

We have demonstrated binding of purified pili from a strain of Escherichia coli to Vero cell monolayers as a model of prokaryotic-eukaryotic cell adherence. Pili bound to the tissue culture in a rapid reaction that did not require enzymatic activation. Attachment occurred optimally at pH 4-5 and could be inhibited by analogues of D-mannose, anti-pili antibodies, or by preincubation of tissue ce...

Pili of pathogenic Neisseria are major virulence factors associated with adhesion, twitching motility, auto-aggregation, and DNA transformation. Pili of N. meningitidis are subject to several different post-translational modifications. Among these pilin modifications, the presence of phosphorylcholine (ChoP) and a glycan on the pilin protein are phase-variable (subject to high frequency, revers...

Extracellular non-flagellar appendages, called pili or fimbriae, are widespread in gram-negative bacteria. They are involved in many different functions, including motility, adhesion, biofilm formation, and uptake of DNA. Sequencing data for a large number of cyanobacterial genomes revealed that most of them contain genes for pili synthesis. However, only for a very few cyanobacteria structure ...

Adhesive chaperone-usher pili are long, supramolecular protein fibers displayed on the surface of many bacterial pathogens. The type 1 and P pili of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) play important roles during urinary tract colonization, mediating attachment to the bladder and kidney, respectively. The biomechanical properties of the helical pilus rods allow them to reversibly uncoil in re...

Xylella fastidiosa cells were shown to exhibit twitching motility ‘upstream’ in microfabricated ‘artificial xylem vessels’. Such motility is due to extension and retraction of type IV pili present on the poles of the bacteria. Importantly, such upstream migration was subsequently demonstrated in planta. A survey of isolates from California, Texas and South Carolina revealed that all possessed m...

Pili isolated from Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAK were solubilized in the detergent octyl-glucoside. Subsequent removal of the detergent by dialysis resulted in the formation of short rods of about 9 nm in diameter and various lengths. The aggregation process was followed by ultracentrifugation, viscometry, and electron microscopy to show that the aggregates produced in this way are distinct from p...