ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2014
Pilus hijacking by a bacterial coaggregation factor critical for oral biofilm development.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fibrinogen was associated with subgingival microbiome in periodontal diseases: a pilot study.Journal of oral microbiology · 2026Article
- The CarSR two-component system directly controlsJournal of bacteriology · 2025Article
- Article
- Molecular basis for dual functions in pilus assembly modulated by the lid of a pilus-specific sortase.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2024Article
- Effects of glucose and lactate onMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Single-Copy Gene Editing of a Cell Wall-Anchored Pilin in Actinomyces oris.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- Supragingival microbiome variations and the influence ofJournal of oral microbiology · 2024Article
- Detection of Cell Wall-Anchoring Machinery by Immunogold-Labeling Thin-Section Electron Microscopy.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- A review on pilus assembly mechanisms in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria.Cell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
- A cell wall-anchored glycoprotein confers resistance to cation stress in Actinomyces oris biofilms.Molecular oral microbiology · 2022Article
- A conserved signal-peptidase antagonist modulates membrane homeostasis of actinobacterial sortase critical for surface morphogenesis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Anchoring surface proteins to the bacterial cell wall by sortase enzymes: how it started and what we know now.Current opinion in microbiology · 2021Review
- New Paradigms of Pilus Assembly Mechanisms in Gram-Positive Actinobacteria.Trends in microbiology · 2020Review
- Assessment of CafA Targeted BAR-Encapsulated Nanoparticles against Oral Biofilms.Pharmaceutics · 2020Article
- Temperature-regulated heterogeneous extracellular matrix gene expression defines biofilm morphology in Clostridium perfringens.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2020Article
- The adhesive PitA pilus protein from the early dental plaque colonizer Streptococcus oralis: expression, purification, crystallization and X-ray diffraction analysis.Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2020Article
- Cell-to-cell interaction requires optimal positioning of a pilus tip adhesin modulated by gram-positive transpeptidase enzymes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Insights into the mechanism(s) of digestion of crystalline cellulose by plant class C GH9 endoglucanases.Journal of molecular modeling · 2019Article
- Unveiling the role of Gardnerella vaginalis in polymicrobial Bacterial Vaginosis biofilms: the impact of other vaginal pathogens living as neighbors.The ISME journal · 2019Article
- Redundant and Distinct Roles of Secreted Protein Eap and Cell Wall-Anchored Protein SasG in Biofilm Formation and Pathogenicity of Staphylococcus aureus.Infection and immunity · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The formation of dental plaque, a highly complex biofilm that causes gingivitis and periodontitis, requires specific adherence among many oral microbes, including the coaggregation of Actinomyces oris with Streptococcus oralis that helps to seed biofilm development. Here, we report the discovery of a key coaggregation factor for this process. This protein, which we named coaggregation factor A (CafA), is one of 14 cell surface proteins with the LPXTG motif predicted in A. oris MG1, whose function was hitherto unknown. By systematic mutagenesis of each of these genes and phenotypic characterization, we found that the Actinomyces/Streptococcus coaggregation is only abolished by deletion of cafA. Subsequent biochemical and cytological experiments revealed that CafA constitutes the tip of a unique form of the type 2 fimbria long known for its role in coaggregation. The direct and predominant role of CafA in adherence is evident from the fact that CafA or an antibody against CafA inhibits coaggregation, whereas the shaft protein FimA or a polyclonal antibody against FimA has no effect. Remarkably, FimA polymerization was blocked by deletion of genes for both CafA and FimB, the previously described tip protein of the type 2 fimbria. Together, these results indicate that some surface proteins not linked to a pilus gene cluster in Gram-positive bacteria may hijack the pilus. These unique tip proteins displayed on a common pilus shaft may serve distinct physiological functions. Furthermore, the pilus shaft assembly in Gram-positive bacteria may require a tip, as is true for certain Gram-negative bacterial pili.
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Registered trials
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.