Journal
NATURE MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 4, Issue 9, Pages 1545-1557Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41564-019-0479-5
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Funding
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship [703340]
- European Research Council [309064-VIR4ENV, 724630-CholeraIndex]
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) [55008726]
- EPFL intramural funding
- Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) [703340] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA)
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How bacteria colonize surfaces and how they distinguish the individuals around them are fundamental biological questions. Type IV pili are a widespread and multipurpose class of cell surface polymers. Here we directly visualize the DNA-uptake pilus of Vibrio cholerae, which is produced specifically during growth on its natural habitat-chitinous surfaces. As predicted, these pili are highly dynamic and retract before DNA uptake during competence for natural transformation. Interestingly, DNA-uptake pili can also self-interact to mediate auto-aggregation. This capability is conserved in disease-causing pandemic strains, which typically encode the same major pilin subunit, PilA. Unexpectedly, however, we discovered that extensive strain-to-strain variability in PilA (present in environmental isolates) creates a set of highly specific interactions, enabling cells producing pili composed of different PilA subunits to distinguish between one another. We go on to show that DNA-uptake pili bind to chitinous surfaces and are required for chitin colonization under flow, and that pili capable of self-interaction connect cells on chitin within dense pili networks. Our results suggest a model whereby DNA-uptake pili function to promote inter-bacterial interactions during surface colonization. Moreover, they provide evidence that type IV pili could offer a simple and potentially widespread mechanism for bacterial kin recognition.
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