Fig. 5: Phage transduction depends on the charges exposed at the surface of PilE.
a Reconstruction of type IV pilus fibres for six different PilE variants from the Z∆MDA strain (this strain has a mix of pilE sequences), from the most positively charged surface (on the left) to the most negatively charged surface (on the right). The predicted structures are based on the biological assembly 5KUA and the predicted structure of the PilE subunits obtained using Alphafold-3. Structures were coloured using the coulombic electrostatic potential command of ChimeraX, with the default colour ranging from red for negative potential through white to blue for positive potential. pI (isoelectric point) was determined using the iep tool on Galaxy version 5.0.0.1 with initial parameters. b Transduction rate of Z∆MDA strain and its four derived clones (arb. units: arbitrary unit). The transduction rate of pilESA has been reused from Fig. 1e to facilitate understanding of the figure. Experiments were performed three times in duplicate (n = 3). Statistical analyses were performed using the ordinary ANOVA test with Dunnett’s correction, and data were expressed as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. c Amino acid sequence alignment scheme for strains expressing the PilESA and PilESD variants and their derivative mutants in which amino acid 70-71 and/or the D-region (Dreg) were swapped. The PilESA sequence is shown in red and the PilESD sequence is shown in green. d Transduction rate of strains Z∆MDA and its derivatives Z∆MDA mutS+ ∆recA expressing PilESA or PilESD variants and their mutants. White dots correspond to CFU results below the detection threshold. Experiments were performed three times in duplicate (n = 3). Statistical analyses were performed using the Ordinary one-way ANOVA test with Bonferroni correction, and data were expressed as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
