The role of fimbriae of uropathogenic Escherichia coli as carriers of the adhesin involved in mannose-resistant hemagglutination (original) (raw)

Hoekstra and H. Bergmans. The role of fimbriae of uropathogenic Escherichia coli as carriers of the adhesin involved in mannose-resistant hemagglutination. Microbial Pathogenesis 1986 ; 1 : 51-56. The gene clusters encoding various P-fimbriae (F7 1 , F7 2, F9 and F11) were compared. Deletion plasmids that lack the gene encoding the fimbrillin were derived from these gene clusters. Introduction of these deletion plasmids into an E. coli K1 2 strain resulted in non-fimbriated cells that still showed mannose-resistant hemagglutination (MRHA). However when introduced into wild type E. coli strains no MRHA was observed. Derivatives of the wild type E, coli strains with reduced amounts of 0-antigen on the other hand showed MRHA when harbouring these plasmids. These results indicate that adhesion and presence of fimbriae are not necessarily linked. P-fimbriae could function as a carrier for the adhesin and thus endow adhesive capacity to cells with a complete O-antigen .