UW-Madison Dept of Bacteriology

Research Description

With the advent of antibiotics in the 1940's, many of the threats and fears of bacterial disease were temporarily overcome. Today antibiotic resistance and newly emerging microbial diseases are among the greatest threats to human health. We study the structural aspects of microbial disease, using x-ray crystallography and complementary techniques. Our focus is the structure and assembly of Type IV pili, surface organelles that mediate attachment of pathogenic bacteria to eukaryotic cells. Pili are also required for twitching motility, which allows them to slither over and colonize eukaryotic host cells. We have recently solved the crystal structure of the pilus retraction protein PilT, a conserved nucleotide-binding protein essential for twitching motility. Eventually, our understanding of the structure, assembly and antigenicity of pili and the mechanism of their assembly may lead to vaccines against many bacteria with Type IV pili.