Affiliation:
1. Membrane Complexes and Pathogenicity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, CNRS LISM (UPR9027)—Aix-Marseille Université, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Bacterial attachment to the substratum involves several cell surface organelles, including various types of pili. The
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Tad machine assembles type IVb pili, which are required for adhesion to abiotic surfaces and to eukaryotic cells. Type IVb pili consist of a major subunit, the Flp pilin, processed by the FppA prepilin peptidase. In this study, we investigated the regulatory mechanism of the
tad
locus. We showed that the
flp
gene is expressed late in the stationary growth phase in aerobic conditions. We also showed that the
tad
locus was composed of five independent transcriptional units. We used transcriptional fusions to show that
tad
gene expression was positively controlled by the PprB response regulator. We subsequently showed that PprB bound to the promoter regions, directly controlling the expression of these genes. We then evaluated the contribution of two genes,
tadF
and
rcpC
, to type IVb pilus assembly. The deletion of these two genes had no effect on Flp production, pilus assembly, or Flp-mediated adhesion to abiotic surfaces in our conditions. However, our results suggest that the putative RcpC protein modifies the Flp pilin, thereby promoting Flp-dependent adhesion to eukaryotic cells.
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Subject
Molecular Biology,Microbiology
Cited by
63 articles.
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