Evolution of the chaperone/usher assembly pathway: fimbrial classification goes Greek. |
| |
Authors: | Sean-Paul Nuccio Andreas J. B?umler |
| |
Affiliation: | Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, University of California at Davis, One Shields Ave., Davis, CA 95616-8645, USA. |
| |
Abstract: | Many Proteobacteria use the chaperone/usher pathway to assemble proteinaceous filaments on the bacterial surface. These filaments can curl into fimbrial or nonfimbrial surface structures (e.g., a capsule or spore coat). This article reviews the phylogeny of operons belonging to the chaperone/usher assembly class to explore the utility of establishing a scheme for subdividing them into clades of phylogenetically related gene clusters. Based on usher amino acid sequence comparisons, our analysis shows that the chaperone/usher assembly class is subdivided into six major phylogenetic clades, which we have termed alpha-, beta-, gamma-, kappa-, pi-, and sigma-fimbriae. Members of each clade share related operon structures and encode fimbrial subunits with similar protein domains. The proposed classification system offers a simple and convenient method for assigning newly discovered chaperone/usher systems to one of the six major phylogenetic groups. |
| |
Keywords: | |
|
|