The type IVa pilus machinery is pre-installed during cell division

Lori L. Burrows, P. Lynne Howell, Ryan N.C. Buensuceso, Stephanie Tammam, Tyson Carter, Hanjeong Harvey, Ryan P. Lamers

Type IV pili (T4aP) are ubiquitous microbial appendages used for adherence, twitching motility, DNA uptake, and electron transfer. Many of these functions depend on dynamic assembly and disassembly of the pilus by a megadalton-sized, cell envelope-spanning protein complex located at the poles of rod-shaped bacteria.

Link to the paper

This paper (now entitled “The type IVa pilus machinery is recruited to sites of future cell division”) has been published in MBio.