TY - JOUR
T1 - Structural and evolutionary analyses show unique stabilization strategies in the type IV Pili of clostridium difficile
AU - Piepenbrink, Kurt H.
AU - Maldarelli, Grace A.
AU - Martinez De La Peña, Claudia F.
AU - Dingle, Tanis C.
AU - Mulvey, George L.
AU - Lee, Amanda
AU - Von Rosenvinge, Erik
AU - Armstrong, Glen D.
AU - Donnenberg, Michael S.
AU - Sundberg, Eric J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NIH grant R21 AI105881 (to M.S.D.). Additional work was supported by the Alberta Glycomics Centre. K.H.P. was supported in part by NIH training grant T32 AI095190 and by an NIH fellowship F32 AI 110045. C.M.P. was supported in part by Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology No. 130211 (CONACYT). We thank the staff at Brookhaven National Laboratory National Synchrotron Light Source beamline X25 and the staff at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource Beamline 12-2 for technical assistance with X-ray data collection. We also thank Alison Scott for technical assistance in collecting and analyzing the RNA-Seq data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/2/3
Y1 - 2015/2/3
N2 - Type IV pili are produced by many pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria and are important for processes as diverse as twitching motility, biofilm formation, cellular adhesion, and horizontal gene transfer. However, many Gram-positive species, including Clostridium difficile, also produce type IV pili. Here, we identify the major subunit of the type IV pili of C. difficile, PilA1, and describe multiple 3D structures of PilA1, demonstrating the diversity found in three strains of C. difficile. We also model the incorporation of both PilA1 and a minor pilin, PilJ, into the pilus fiber. Although PilA1 contains no cysteine residues, and therefore cannot form the disulfide bonds found in all Gram-negative type IV pilins, it adopts unique strategies to achieve a typical pilin fold. The structures of PilA1 and PilJ exhibit similarities with the type IVb pilins from Gram-negative bacteria that suggest that the type IV pili of C. difficile are involved in microcolony formation.
AB - Type IV pili are produced by many pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria and are important for processes as diverse as twitching motility, biofilm formation, cellular adhesion, and horizontal gene transfer. However, many Gram-positive species, including Clostridium difficile, also produce type IV pili. Here, we identify the major subunit of the type IV pili of C. difficile, PilA1, and describe multiple 3D structures of PilA1, demonstrating the diversity found in three strains of C. difficile. We also model the incorporation of both PilA1 and a minor pilin, PilJ, into the pilus fiber. Although PilA1 contains no cysteine residues, and therefore cannot form the disulfide bonds found in all Gram-negative type IV pilins, it adopts unique strategies to achieve a typical pilin fold. The structures of PilA1 and PilJ exhibit similarities with the type IVb pilins from Gram-negative bacteria that suggest that the type IV pili of C. difficile are involved in microcolony formation.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.str.2014.11.018
DO - 10.1016/j.str.2014.11.018
M3 - Article
C2 - 25599642
AN - SCOPUS:84930190475
SN - 0969-2126
VL - 23
SP - 385
EP - 396
JO - Structure with Folding & design
JF - Structure with Folding & design
IS - 2
ER -