Journal of Bacteriology & Parasitology

Analysis of type IV pilus biogenesis genes between Neisseria meningitidis, Neisseria Gonorrhoea, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Vibrio cholerae

3^rd International Congress on Bacteriology and Infectious Diseases

August 04-06, 2015 Valencia, Spain

Saeed Ahmed1, Ijaz Ahmad1, Zia ur-rehman, Shahzad Akbar khan2 and Ayub Jadoon3

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Bacteriol Parasitol

Abstract:

Type IV pili are long, thin and flexible filaments which play an important role in bacterial pathogenesis. In current study,
structural and sequences similarities of type IV pili proteins and their associated proteins were analysed in Pseudomonas
aeruginosa, Vibrio cholerae, Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae. P. aeruginosa and the pathogenic Neisseria species
possess pil-genes for structural and assembly proteins of type IV pili. In opposite to P. aeruginosa and Neisseria, V. cholerae
expresses toxin-co-regulated pili (tcp). In V. cholera typical type IV pil genes are often pseudogenes. The major pilin subunit of
P. aeruginosa and Neisseria contains a short signal peptide region whereas pilin of V. cholera lacks this type of signal peptide.
Pre-pilins are cleaved by signal sequence peptidases which are similar in all the three bacterial species. The secretin PilQ of
P. aeruginosa and pathogenic Neisseria are more similar as compared to the secretin TcpC in V. cholerae. A set of assembly
proteins denoted PilM, PilN, PilO and PilP show homology between Neisseria and P. aeruginosa. In V. cholerae, these proteins
have functional counterparts denoted TcpD, TcpR and TcpS. The pilus retraction and assembly ATPases, PilT, PilU and PilB/
PilF are homologous in P. aeruginosa and Neisseria whereas V. cholerae possesses only one ATPase called TcpT. In this work
the type IV pilus machinery of P. aeruginosa shows high resemblance with the type IV pilus machinery of pathogenic Neisseria
whereas the pilus assembly machinery in V. cholera is different. Finally, the role of type IV pili in biofilm formation of P.
aeruginosa V. cholerae, and Neisseria is summarized.