The structural similarity between the pilin glycan and the O-antigen of Pseudomonas aeruginosa 1244 suggested that they have a common metabolic origin. Mutants of this organism lacking functional wbpM or wbpL genes synthesized no O-antigen and produced only non-glycosylated pilin. Complementation with plasmids containing functional wbpM or wbpL genes fully restored the ability to produce both O...

Antipeptide antibodies were used to detect, purify, and characterize nonfilament F-pilin in the cell envelope of an F'tra+ strain of Escherichia coli. Affinity-purified goat antibodies raised against a peptide corresponding to the amino-terminal 14 amino acids of F-pilin detected F-pilin in immuno-overlay ("Western") blots of electrophoretically separated inner and outer membrane proteins. As e...

The plasma membrane is implicated in a variety of functions, whose coordination necessitates highly dynamic organization of its constituents into domains of distinct protein and lipid composition. Eisosomes, at least partially, mediate this lateral plasma membrane compartmentalization. In this work, we show that the Nce102 homologue of Aspergillus nidulans colocalizes with eisosomes and plays a...

PURPOSE: Pili (fimbriae) have frequently been found to be involved in the attachment of bacteria to mucosal epithelial cells, an important initial step in the disease process. The purpose of this study was to determine if BrunhameZZa catarrhalis expresses type 4 pili. MATERIALSANDMETHODS: Piliated B. caturrhalis phenotypic characteristics of colony morphology, agar corrosion, twitching motility...

The obligate human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the sole aetiologic agent of the sexually transmitted infection, gonorrhea. Required for gonococcal infection, Type IV pili (Tfp) mediate many functions including adherence, twitching motility, defense against neutrophil killing, and natural transformation. Critical for immune escape, the gonococcal Tfp undergoes antigenic variation, a recomb...

INTRODUCTION Extending work of Bombieri and Pila on counting lattice points on convex curves [3], Pila and Wilkie proved a strong counting theorem on the number of rational points in a more general class of sets definable in an o-minimal structure on the real numbers [37]. Following a strategy proposed by Zannier, the Pila-Wilkie upper bound has been leveraged against Galois-theoretic lower bou...

Abstract. Complex microbial communities facilitate iron and methane transformations in anoxic methanic sediments of freshwater lakes, such as Lake Kinneret (the Sea Galilee, Israel). The phylogenetic functional diversity these consortia are not fully understood, it is clear which lineages perform reduction anaerobic oxidation (AOM). Here, we investigated from both natural iron-rich (>20 cm d...

Expression of pili and associated proteins is an important means of host invasion by bacterial pathogens. Recent evidence has suggested that the binding of Pseudomonas aeruginosa through nonpilus adhesins may also be important in respiratory diseases, since adhesins bind mucins. Using wild-type C57BL/6 and TLR2KO mice, we compared the induction levels of the host response to P. aeruginosa that ...

The pili of the stalked bacterium Caulobacter crescentus are assembled at a specific time in the life cycle at one pole of the cell and are composed of the monomer protein, pilin. A previous study demonstrated that the onset of pilin synthesis occurs well before pili appear on the surface, suggesting that pilin accumulates within the cell. In the present study, an electron microscope immunocyto...

The prokaryotic signal recognition particle (SRP) targeting system is a complex of two proteins, FtsY and Ffh, and a 4.5S RNA that targets a subset of proteins to the cytoplasmic membrane cotranslationally. We previously showed that Neisseria gonorrhoeae PilA is the gonococcal FtsY homolog. In this work, we isolated the other two components of the gonococcal SRP, Ffh and 4.5S RNA, and character...