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Type IV pili—a numbers game
Author(s) -
Karuppiah Vijaykumar,
Derrick Jeremy P
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.15252/embj.201489096
Subject(s) - biology , pilus , fimbriae proteins , genetics , escherichia coli , gene
Type IV pili are long polymers located on the surface of a wide variety of bacterial cells, including the pathogen Neisseria meningitidis . They are responsible for a diverse range of functions, including adhesion, motility and natural transformation. In this issue of The EMBO Journal , Imhaus and Duménil show that two minor pilins, PilX and PilV, exert some of their effects by changing mean surface pilus number and that this modulates different pilus‐dependent functions.