Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23078543›Full record

ArticleEnvironmental microbiology2012

Structure and function of the adhesive type IV pilus of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius.

Anna-Lena Henche, Abhrajyoti Ghosh, Xiong Yu, Torsten Jeske, Edward Egelman, Sonja-Verena Albers

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Environmental microbiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
50citing papers in PubMed
5.4field-weighted citation impact, top 4% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

50 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Journal of bacteriology · 2026
    Review
  2. Review
  3. Tat-dependent bundling pilus of a halophilic archaeon assembles by a strand donation mechanism and facilitates biofilm formation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Cyclization of archaeal membrane lipids impacts membrane protein activity and archaellum formation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
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  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
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  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Archaella Isolation.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2023
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Anna-Lena HencheMolecular Biology of Archaea, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse 10, 35043, Marburg, Germany.
Abhrajyoti Ghosh
Xiong Yu
Torsten Jeske
Edward Egelman
Sonja-Verena Albers
Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology · DEUniversity of Virginia · US

Funding

Methods for the Analysis of Helical Macromolecular ComplexesR01EB001567 · NIBIB · UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CHARLOTTESVILLE · PI EGELMAN, EDWARD H. · 2003 to 2014
$3.6M
NIBIB NIH HHS EB001567NIBIB NIH HHS R01 EB001567
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Archaea display a variety of type IV pili on their surface and employ them in different physiological functions. In the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius the most abundant surface structure is the aap pilus (archaeal adhesive pilus). The construction of in frame deletions of the aap genes revealed that all the five genes (aapA, aapX, aapE, aapF, aapB) are indispensible for assembly of the pilus and an impact on surface motility and biofilm formation was observed. Our analyses revealed that there exists a regulatory cross-talk between the expression of aap genes and archaella (formerly archaeal flagella) genes during different growth phases. The structure of the aap pilus is entirely different from the known bacterial type IV pili as well as other archaeal type IV pili. An aap pilus displayed 3 stranded helices where there is a rotation per subunit of ∼138° and a rise per subunit of ∼5.7 Å. The filaments have a diameter of ∼110 Å and the resolution was judged to be ∼9 Å. We concluded that small changes in sequence might be amplified by large changes in higher-order packing. Our finding of an extraordinary stability of aap pili possibly represents an adaptation to harsh environments that S. acidocaldarius encounters.

Indexed as

AdhesivenessBiofilmsFimbriae, BacterialFimbriae ProteinsMicroscopy, Electron, TransmissionMutationSulfolobus acidocaldariusFimbriae Proteins

Identifiers

PMID23078543
PMCPMC3977132
OpenAlexW1869148146

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.