Type IV pili are involved in adhesion, twitching motility, aggregation, biofilm formation and virulence in a variety of Gram-negative bacteria.
the causative agent of melioidosis and a Tier 1 ...biological select agent, is a Gram-negative bacterium with eight type IV pili-associated loci (TFP1 to TFP8). Most have not been fully characterized. In this study, we investigated
, an uncharacterized TFP8 gene that encodes a type IVB pilus protein subunit. Using genetic deletion and complementation analysis in
JW270, we demonstrate that
plays an important role in twitching motility and adhesion to A549 human alveolar epithelial cells. Compared to JW270, the JW270
mutant failed to display twitching motility and did not adhere to the epithelial cells. These phenotypes were partially reversed by the complementation of
in the mutant strain. The study also shows that
is expressed only during the onset of mature biofilm formation and at the dispersal of a biofilm, suggesting that the motility characteristic is required to form a biofilm. Our study is the first to suggest that the
gene in TFP8 contributes to twitching motility, adhesion and biofilm formation, indicating that the gene may contribute to
virulence.
