The pili of Gram-negative bacteria are long extracellular polymers that mediate diverse functions, such as bacterial attachment, movement and substrate transport. There are five classes of pili in ...

Pili are short, hair-like structures on the cell surface of prokaryotic cells. They can have a role in movement, but are more often involved in adherence to surfaces, which facilitates infection, and ...

Depiction of bacteriophage PP7 (orange) at the cell surface of Pseudomonas aeruginosa detaching the bacterium’s pilus (blue). The researchers identified protein structures and interactions using ...

Type IV pili, essential for many pathogens to cause disease, are hair-like appendages that grow out of and are retracted back into bacteria cells, enabling them to move and adhere to surfaces.

A new study shows that bacteria need the resistance to pilus retraction that occurs upon contact with a surface in order to sense surfaces and excrete the glue that makes them firmly adhere. Most of ...

Across the globe, access to clean water and renewable sources of energy are in constant demand and we have curated a slew of interesting solutions. But Ohio-based Pilus Energy has engineered a new, ...

Now we come to the third winning question about Microcosm. Kenatiod writes, Long ago, in bacteriology class, the teacher (an ex-nun at an ex-Catholic college) was telling us about the type “F” pili ...

To adapt to changing environmental pressures, bacteria have developed various methods that allow them to uptake exogenous DNA and incorporate it into their own genomes. One of these processes is ...

Although pathogenic bacteria often rely on a specialized molecular motor to retract their pili, a new study reveals that a minor pilin protein elicits pilus retraction in the cholera bacterium, Vibrio ...