In:
Infection and Immunity, American Society for Microbiology, Vol. 69, No. 9 ( 2001-09), p. 5864-5873
Abstract:
The assembly of pilus colonization factor antigen III (CFA/III) of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) requires the processing of CFA/III major pilin (CofA) by a prepilin peptidase (CofP), similar to other type IV pilus formation systems. CofA is produced initially as a 26.5-kDa preform pilin (prepilin) and then processed to a 20.5-kDa mature pilin by CofP which is predicted to be localized in the inner membrane. In the present experiment, we determined the nucleotide sequence of the whole region for CFA/III formation and identified a cluster of 14 genes, including cofA and cofP . Several proteins encoded by cof genes were similar to previously described proteins, such as the toxin-coregulated pili of Vibrio cholerae and the bundle-forming pili of enteropathogenic E. coli . The G+C content of the cof gene cluster was 37%, which was significantly lower than the average for the E. coli genome (50%). The introduction of a recombinant plasmid containing the cof gene cluster into the E. coli K-12 strain conferred CFA/III biogenesis and the ability of adhesion to the human colon carcinoma cell line Caco-2. This is the first report of a complete nucleotide sequence of the type IV pili found in human ETEC, and our results provide a useful model for studying the molecular mechanism of CFA/III biogenesis and the role of CFA/III in ETEC infection.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0019-9567
,
1098-5522
DOI:
10.1128/IAI.69.9.5864-5873.2001
Language:
English
Publisher:
American Society for Microbiology
Publication Date:
2001
detail.hit.zdb_id:
1483247-1
