Functional reconstitution of the type IVa pilus assembly system from enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli

What is it about?

An artificial operon encoding a type 4a pilus assembly system from Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) was reconstituted in a non-pathogenic E. coli. The reconstituted system assembled the major pilin subunit PpdD into pili. These pili were identical to PpdD pili assembled by the heterologous, type 2 secretion system, despite major differences between the two assembly machineries. The results show that major pilins are key determinants of pilus structure.

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