The Power of Touch: Type 4 Pili, the von Willebrand A Domain, and Surface Sensing by Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Webster, Shanice S.; Wong, Gerard C. L.; O’Toole, George A.

doi:10.1128/jb.00084-22

Cited by 26 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 165 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Specifically, although only demonstrated under in vitro experimental conditions, bifidobacterial transaldolases have been described to act as extracellular appendages promoting adherence to the host mucosal surface, therefore acting as adhesive moonlighting proteins with high binding affinities to mucin ( Nishiyama et al, 2020 ; Shang et al, 2022 ). Proteins harbouring a fibronectin type III- or von Willebrand domain have been shown to promote anchoring to the extracellular matrix protein ( Heidler et al, 2021 ; Nezametdinova et al, 2021 ; van Leeuwen et al, 2021 ; Webster et al, 2022 ). These results indicate that PRL2022 can employ different strategies, including strain-specific features, to adhere to the human intestinal epithelium and, therefore, persist in the human intestinal environment.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a prototype human gut Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum strain based on comparative and functional genomic approaches

Alessandri

Fontana²,

Tarracchini³

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Bifidobacteria are extensively exploited for the formulation of probiotic food supplements due to their claimed ability to exert health-beneficial effects upon their host. However, most commercialized probiotics are tested and selected for their safety features rather than for their effective abilities to interact with the host and/or other intestinal microbial players. In this study, we applied an ecological and phylogenomic-driven selection to identify novel B. longum subsp. longum strains with a presumed high fitness in the human gut. Such analyses allowed the identification of a prototype microorganism to investigate the genetic traits encompassed by the autochthonous bifidobacterial human gut communities. B. longum subsp. longum PRL2022 was selected due to its close genomic relationship with the calculated model representative of the adult human-gut associated B. longum subsp. longum taxon. The interactomic features of PRL2022 with the human host as well as with key representative intestinal microbial members were assayed using in vitro models, revealing how this bifidobacterial gut strain is able to establish extensive cross-talk with both the host and other microbial residents of the human intestine.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of a prototype human gut Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum strain based on comparative and functional genomic approaches

Alessandri

Fontana²,

Tarracchini³

et al. 2023

Front. Microbiol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As hypothesized from its function in eukaryotes, this domain indeed mediates host cell adhesion [77]. Subsequently, a VWA domain was also found in PilY1 of P. aeruginosa [38, 67, 78]. Therefore, our observation that VWA_2 Pfam domains are largely confined to ComC proteins of Acinetobacter pathogens in the ACB clade makes it tempting to postulate that the addition of a VWA domain to the PTA is at least one determinant that turns T4aP into a virulence factor.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domain-architecture aware phylogenetic profiling indicates a functional diversification of type IVa pili in the nosocomial pathogenAcinetobacter baumannii

Iruegas

Pfefferle

Göttig

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Gram-negative bacterial pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii is a major cause of hospital-acquired opportunistic infections. The increasing spread of pan-drug resistant strains, paired with a surge in virulence, makes A. baumannii top-ranking among the ESKAPE pathogens for which novel routes of treatment are urgently needed. Comparative genomics approaches have successfully identified genetic changes that coincide with the emergence of pathogenicity in Acinetobacter. Genes that are prevalent both in pathogenic and a-pathogenic Acinetobacter species were not considered ignoring that virulence factors may emerge by the modification of evolutionarily old and widespread proteins. Here, we increased the resolution of comparative genomics analyses to also include lineage-specific changes in protein domain architectures. Using type IVa pili (T4aP) as an example, we show that two pilus components, FimU and the pilus tip adhesin ComC, exist with markedly differing domain architectures in pathogenic Acinetobacter species. ComC, has gained a von Willebrand Factor type A domain displaying a finger-like protrusion, and we provide experimental evidence that this finger conveys virulence-related functions in A. baumannii. Both genes together form an evolutionary cassette, which has been replaced at least twice during A. baumannii diversification. The resulting strain-specific differences in T4aP layout suggests differences in the way how individual strains interact with their host. Our study underpins the hypothesis that A. baumannii uses T4aP for host infection as it was shown previously for other pathogens. It also indicates that many more functional complexes may exist whose precise function can be rapidly adjusted by changing the domain architecture of individual proteins.

show abstract

“…Bacteria, in order to interact with external environmental stimuli, exhibit long proteinaceous appendages on their cell surface in a wide range of bacteria, determined as pili or fimbriae, as identified in our targeted soils [111,112]. These non-flagellar structures are classified according to their assembly pathways, being type VI pile, found predominantly in our study, whose flexible surface appendages act as virulence factors in Gram-negative bacteria, and type IV-related pili, that are also identified in Gram-positive, capable of driving environmental adaptation and fitness [113,114].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metagenomic insights for antimicrobial resistance surveillance in soils with different land uses in Brazil

Ordine

Souza

Tamasco³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Anthropization in terrestrial environments commonly leads to land use transformation, changing soil properties and their microbial communities. This, combined with the exacerbated use of antibiotics in human and animal health promotes the expansion of the soil resistome. Considering the urgent need for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), we aimed to evaluate how different land practices (urban, farming and forest) can affect the soil resistome and the dynamics of their bacterial communities. We collected eight soil samples from different locations in the countryside of Sao Paulo (Brazil), assessed the community profiles based on 16S rRNA sequencing and analyzed the soil metagenomes based on shotgun sequencing. Our results highlight differences in the communities' structure and their dynamics which were correlated with land practices. Additionally, differences were observed in the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and virulence factors (VFs) across studied soils, where a higher presence and homogeneity of vanRO, mtrA and rbpA genes were detected in livestock soils. We observed that Staphylococcus and Bacillus are positively correlated with each other and are markers for agricultural communities. Moreover, the abundance and diversity of ARGs and VFs observed in farming soils raises concerns regarding the potential spread of these genes in the environment. Together, our findings reinforce the importance and urgency of AMR surveillance in the environment, especially in soils undergoing deep land use transformations due to anthropic activity.

show abstract

The Power of Touch: Type 4 Pili, the von Willebrand A Domain, and Surface Sensing by Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Cited by 26 publications

References 165 publications

Identification of a prototype human gut Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum strain based on comparative and functional genomic approaches

Identification of a prototype human gut Bifidobacterium longum subsp. longum strain based on comparative and functional genomic approaches

Domain-architecture aware phylogenetic profiling indicates a functional diversification of type IVa pili in the nosocomial pathogenAcinetobacter baumannii

Metagenomic insights for antimicrobial resistance surveillance in soils with different land uses in Brazil

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About