FIG 5 .

Ebp pilus operon presence and analysis of EbpA conservation and expression and of its function in binding to Fg in clinical enterococcal strains. (A) Ebp operon scheme. (B) Alignment of 137 unique EbpA peptide and nucleotide sequences by using a hidden Markov model. vWA, von Willebrand factor A. (C) Pearson correlation statistical analysis was performed to measure the correlation between EbpA expression and Fg binding of each tested enterococcal strain (n = 3). Each dot represents the average of results from two independent experiments, each consisting of 3 biological replicates. As a negative control for the expression of EbpA, ΔEbp pilus and ΔEbpA strains were used, and as a negative control for Fg binding, the EbpA MIDAS mutant strain (AWAGA) was used. The star symbols indicate the strains that were selected for additional in vivo analyses.