Department of Biology, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
Trends Microbiol. 2012 Feb;20(2):59-65. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2011.10.002. Epub 2011 Nov 16.
Budding yeasts adhere to biotic or abiotic surfaces and aggregate to form biofilms, using wall-anchored glycoprotein adhesins. The process is paradoxical: adhesins often show weak binding to specific ligands, yet mediate remarkably strong adherence. Single-molecule atomic force microscopy (AFM), genomics, biochemistry and cell biology have recently explained the puzzle, with Candida albicans Als adhesins as the paradigm. The strength of adhesion results partly from force-activated amyloid-like clustering of hundreds of adhesin molecules to form arrays of ordered multimeric binding sites. The various protein domains of eukaryotic adhesins cooperate to facilitate this fascinating new mechanism of activation.
出芽酵母附着在生物或非生物表面,并通过壁锚定糖蛋白黏附素聚集形成生物膜。这个过程是矛盾的:黏附素通常与特定配体的结合较弱,但介导的黏附作用却非常强。单细胞原子力显微镜(AFM)、基因组学、生物化学和细胞生物学最近解释了这个难题,以白色念珠菌 Als 黏附素为例。黏附的强度部分来自于数百个黏附素分子在力的作用下激活形成有序多聚体结合位点的淀粉样聚集。真核黏附素的各种蛋白结构域协同作用,促进了这种迷人的新激活机制。