ArticlePloS one2013
Contribution of individual Ebp Pilus subunits of Enterococcus faecalis OG1RF to pilus biogenesis, biofilm formation and urinary tract infection.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Contact dependent suppression ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Integrated Phenotypic and Genomic Profiling of Antimicrobial Resistance and Virulence-Associated Determinants in Poultry-DerivedVeterinary sciences · 2026Article
- Role of Clot Formation and Plasminogen Activation in Lower Urinary Tract Pathologies.Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis, and vascular biology · 2025Review
- Insights into ecology, pathogenesis, and biofilm formation ofMicrobiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2025Review
- Role of sortase-assembled Ebp pili inMicrobiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Bacterial adhesion strategies and countermeasures in urinary tract infection.Nature microbiology · 2025Review
- Current Knowledge of Enterococcal Endocarditis: A Disease Lurking in Plain Sight of Health Providers.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Sortase-encoding genes,Frontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Structural and functional insights of sortases and their interactions with antivirulence compounds.Current research in structural biology · 2024Review
- An RNA modification enzyme directly senses reactive oxygen species for translational regulation in Enterococcus faecalis.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Spatial and temporal localization of cell wall associated pili in Enterococcus faecalis.Molecular microbiology · 2023Article
- A review on pilus assembly mechanisms in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.Cell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- Virulence factors of uropathogens and their role in host pathogen interactions.Cell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- Overcoming Antibiotic Resistance with Novel Paradigms of Antibiotic Selection.Microorganisms · 2022Review
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- c-di-AMP Is Essential for the Virulence ofInfection and immunity · 2021Article
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- Anchoring surface proteins to the bacterial cell wall by sortase enzymes: how it started and what we know now.Current opinion in microbiology · 2021Review
- Enterococcal Endocarditis: Hiding in Plain Sight.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2021Review
- Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The endocarditis and biofilm-associated pilus (Ebp) operon is a component of the core genome of Enterococcus faecalis that has been shown to be important for biofilm formation, adherence to host fibrinogen, collagen and platelets, and in experimental endocarditis and urinary tract infection models. Here, we created single and double deletion mutants of the pilus subunits and sortases; next, by combining western blotting, immunoelectron microscopy, and using ebpR in trans to increase pilus production, we identified EbpA as the tip pilin and EbpB as anchor at the pilus base, the latter attached to cell wall by the housekeeping sortase, SrtA. We also confirmed EbpC and Bps as the major pilin and pilin-specific sortase, respectively, both required for pilus polymerization. Interestingly, pilus length was increased and the number of pili decreased by deleting ebpA, while control overexpression of ebpA in trans restored wild-type levels, suggesting a dual role for EbpA in both initiation and termination of pilus polymerization. We next investigated the contribution of each pilin subunit to biofilm formation and UTI. Significant reduction in biofilm formation was observed with deletion of ebpA or ebpC (P<0.001) while ebpB was found to be dispensable; a similar result was seen in kidney CFUs in experimental UTI (ΔebpA, ΔebpC, P≤0.0093; ΔebpB, non-significant, each vs. OG1RF). Hence, our data provide important structural and functional information about these ubiquitous E. faecalis pili and, based on their demonstrated importance in biofilm and infection, suggest EbpA and EbpC as potential targets for antibody-based therapeutic approaches.
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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.