{"doi":"10.1371/journal.ppat.1008848","title":"Chaperone-tip adhesin complex is vital for synergistic activation of CFA/I fimbriae biogenesis","abstract":"Colonization factor CFA/I defines the major adhesive fimbriae of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli and mediates bacterial attachment to host intestinal epithelial cells. The CFA/I fimbria consists of a tip-localized minor adhesive subunit, CfaE, and thousands of copies of the major subunit CfaB polymerized into an ordered helical rod. Biosynthesis of CFA/I fimbriae requires the assistance of the periplasmic chaperone CfaA and outer membrane usher CfaC. Although the CfaE subunit is proposed to initiate the assembly of CFA/I fimbriae, how it performs this function remains elusive. Here, we report the establishment of an in vitro assay for CFA/I fimbria assembly and show that stabilized CfaA-CfaB and CfaA-CfaE binary complexes together with CfaC are sufficient to drive fimbria formation. The presence of both CfaA-CfaE and CfaC accelerates fimbria formation, while the absence of either component leads to linearized CfaB polymers in vitro. We further report the crystal structure of the stabilized CfaA-CfaE complex, revealing features unique for biogenesis of Class 5 fimbriae.","journal":"PLoS Pathogens","year":2020,"id":85540,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9535,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":437517,"name":"Hao Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-5173-8089","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437518,"name":"Yang Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-5553-3646","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437519,"name":"Mei Kang","orcid":"0000-0002-6625-4834","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437520,"name":"Tao Li","orcid":"0000-0001-5080-3352","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437521,"name":"Changcheng Li","orcid":"0000-0001-7022-0947","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437522,"name":"Aiping Tong","orcid":"0000-0002-3392-5443","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437523,"name":"Yibo Zhu","orcid":"0000-0002-8014-6696","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437524,"name":"Yingjie Song","orcid":"0000-0001-7409-2364","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":427637,"name":"Stephen J. Savarino","orcid":null,"position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426938,"name":"Michael G. Prouty","orcid":"0000-0002-1214-3434","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":348005,"name":"Di Xia","orcid":"0000-0002-2748-0679","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437525,"name":"Rui Bao","orcid":"0000-0002-6083-8716","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":438549,"name":"Lihui He","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":72,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:58:16.217017Z","pmid":"33007034","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}