Prokaryotes have engineered sophisticated surface nanomachines that have allowed them
to colonize Earth and thrive even in extreme environments. Filamentous machineries …

The widespread role of pili as colonization factors in pathogens has long been recognized in
Gram‐negative bacteria and more recently in Gram‐positive bacteria, making the study of …

Type IV pili are part of a widespread superfamily of bacterial and archaeal cell surface
structures important for biofilm formation, motility, host adhesion, predation, DNA uptake …

Type IVa pili are ubiquitous and versatile bacterial cell surface filaments that undergo cycles
of extension, adhesion and retraction powered by the cell-envelope spanning type IVa pilus …

The Tad (tight adherence) macromolecular transport system, which is present in many
bacterial and archaeal species, represents an ancient and major new subtype of type II …

Myxococcus xanthus has a lifecycle characterized by several social interactions. In the
presence of prey, M. xanthus is a predator forming cooperatively feeding colonies, and in the …

Although type IV pili (Tfp) are among the commonest virulence factors in bacteria, their
biogenesis by complex machineries of 12–15 proteins, and thereby their function remains …

Bacteria can swim in liquid media by flagellar rotation and can move on surfaces via gliding
or twitching motility. One type of gliding motility involves the extension, attachment and …

In bacteria, motility is important for a wide variety of biological functions such as virulence,
fruiting body formation, and biofilm formation. While most bacteria move by using …

Summary Type IV pili (T4P) are surface structures that undergo extension/retraction
oscillations to generate cell motility. In Myxococcus xanthus, T4P are unipolarly localized …