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Gene Review:

pilU - twitching motility protein PilU

Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1

Whitchurch, C.B. et al., Park, H.S. et al.

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Disease relevance of pilU

A broader survey showed differential patterns of sensitivity to various fimbrial-specific phages among the pilU mutants and other twitching-motility mutants in the transposon library [1].
An open reading frame downstream of the pilT locus encoding a 408-amino-acid protein with 33% identity with the gonococcal PilT protein and 45% identity with the PilU protein in Pseudomonas aeruginosa was characterized, and the corresponding gene was designated pilU [2].

High impact information on pilU

However, in contrast to pilT mutants, the pilU mutants had not also acquired resistance to infection by bacteriophage PO4 [1].
Like pilT mutants, the pilU mutants were hyperfimbriate, but in neither case was this associated with an increase in transcription of the fimbrial subunit gene pilA [1].
However, loss-of-function mutations in pilU increased bacterial adherence to ME-180 human epithelial cells eightfold and disrupted in vitro Tfp-associated autoagglutination [2].

References

Characterization of a gene, pilU, required for twitching motility but not phage sensitivity in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Whitchurch, C.B., Mattick, J.S. Mol. Microbiol. (1994) [Pubmed]
Modification of type IV pilus-associated epithelial cell adherence and multicellular behavior by the PilU protein of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Park, H.S., Wolfgang, M., Koomey, M. Infect. Immun. (2002) [Pubmed]

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