Question

Describe two important virulence factors essential for biofilm development in K. pneumoniae and explain how biofilm formation contributes to the pathogenicity of K. pneumoniae.

Answer 1

Type 1 and type 3 pili (otherwise known as fimbriae), instead, are non-flagellar, filamentous fimbrial adhesins, often detected on the bacterial surface, that consist of polymeric globular protein subunits (pilin) []. On the basis of their ability to agglutinate erythrocytes and depending on whether the reaction is inhibited by d-mannose, these adhesins are designated as mannose-sensitive (MSHA) or mannose-resistant hemagglutinins (MRHA), respectively [14]. Type 1 fimbriae are encoded by an operon (fim) containing all of the genes required for the fimbrial structure and assembly, with assembly occurring via the chaperone-usher pathway [15]. Type 1 fimbriae in K. pneumoniae are regulated via phase variation in a similar way to the regulation of type 1 fimbriae in E. coli [].