Intragenic recombination leads to pilus antigenic variation in

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摘要：

The pilus of the bacteriumis a fimbriate surface structure which promotes attachment of the bacterium to host epithelial cells. Gonococcal pilus phase variation is characterized by a rapid on/off switch in which piliated (P) cells throw off non-piliated (P) variants and vice versa. Two regions of the gonococcal chromosome (E1 andE2) act as pilin expression loci, reminiscent of thelocus in the yeast, while several other chromosomal regions contain silent (non-expressing) pilin sequences. Biochemical and antigenic diversity is seen in pili from a wide variety of clinical isolates. Pilins (pilus subunits) are composed of conserved N-terminal and variable C-terminal regions; the conserved region of gonococcal pilin is also found in pilins produced by widely disparate bacteria. We show here that the gonococcal pilin undergoes antigenic variationand. The protein consists of constant, semi-variable and hypervariable regions. This antigenic variation probably involves gene conversion of mini-cassettes of pilin information.

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关键词：

Neisseria gonorrhoeae Fimbriae, Bacterial Fimbriae Proteins Antigens, Bacterial Base Sequence Gene Expression Regulation Recombination, Genetic Amino Acid Sequence Bacterial Outer Membrane Proteins Gene Conversion