Fig 6. Complementation of V. cholerae ΔtcpB with tcpB-E5V mutants results in impaired autoagglutination and TcpF secretion without disrupting pilus assembly.
(A) TEM images of V. cholerae ΔtcpB complemented with tcpB mutants encoding Glu5 substitutions show abundant pilus production. Arrows point to TCP bundles and arrowheads point to flagella. (B) Immunoblots of V. cholerae fractions for the ΔtcpB strain complemented with WT tcpB or tcpB mutants. TcpF secretion is disrupted for the TcpB Glu5 variants despite them producing TcpB levels comparable to that of the WT tcpB-complemented ΔtcpB strain. (C) Autoagglutination is impaired in the V. cholerae ΔtcpB strain rescued with TcpB Glu5 mutants. The lower the OD600 values the more complete the autoagglutination. Values are averaged for three replicates; error bars represent standard deviations.