Q2 Long polar fimbriae B (LpfB) gene, it’s biological function and relevance to virulence of the strain

The long polar fimbriae genes encode intestinal adhesins and are important virulence factors in pathogenic E-coli. the exact mode of action of lpf is not well known but there’s enough evidence documented about their role in adhesion of EHEC strains to the intestinal epithelium. The presence of lpf alleles in LEE-negative strains shows it’s the potential role as an important adhesin. ‘Long polar fimbriae (Lpf) are found to be involved in the key steps of EHEC pathogenesis, such as adhesion, translocation or inflammation.’ (Valerie et al., Scientific Reports volume 7, Article number: 44655 (2017)). The lpf1 operon contains six genes ( lpfABCC′DE) similar in sequence and gene order to the Salmonella lpfABCDE genes (Navarro-Garcia et al., microbiolspec November 2014 vol. 2 no. 6 doi:10.1128/microbiolspec.EHEC-0008-2013). Also, it has been shown that lpfB1 encoded fimbriae are important for adherence to epithelial cells presence of this operon is closely related to stx2A (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.01416). The German outbreak, virulence gene association study using BRIG, showed the presence of long polar fimbriae, lpf (A, B, D, E), probably encoded by lpf1 operon like 0157:H7 strain.

Taxonomy and function of lpfB protein, UNiprot