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Pathogenic bacteria possess adhesion protein complexes that play essential roles in targeting host cells and in propagating infection. Although each family of adhesion proteins is generally associated with a specific human disease, the Dr family from Escherichia coli is a notable exception, as its members are associated with both diarrheal and urinary tract infections. These proteins are reported to form both fimbrial and afimbrial structures at the bacterial cell surface and target a common host cell receptor, the decay-accelerating factor (DAF or CD55). Using the newly solved three-dimensional structure of AfaE, we have constructed a robust atomic resolution model that reveals the structural basis for assembly by donor strand complementation and for the architecture of capped surface fibers.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.molcel.2004.08.003

Type

Journal article

Journal

Mol Cell

Publication Date

27/08/2004

Volume

15

Pages

647 - 657

Keywords

Adhesins, Escherichia coli, Amino Acid Sequence, CD55 Antigens, Crystallography, X-Ray, Escherichia coli, Fimbriae, Bacterial, Humans, Models, Molecular, Molecular Sequence Data, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular, Protein Structure, Tertiary, Protein Subunits, Sequence Alignment, Surface Plasmon Resonance