A very large number of proteins are secreted via the T5SS, more even than SB202190 order the T2SS, over 500 in the T5aSS class alone [28–31]. Most of the T5SS secreted proteins characterized to date contribute to the virulence of animal or human pathogens [28–31]. Proteins secreted via the T5SS include adhesins such as AIDA-I and Ag43 of E. coli, Hia of Haemophilus influenzae, YadA of Yersinia enteroliticola and Prn

of Bordetella pertussis; toxins such as VacA of Helicobacter pylori; proteases such as IgA proteases of Neisseria gonorrheae and Neisseria meningitides, SepA of Shigella flexneri and PrtS of Serratia marcescens; and S-layer proteins such as rOmpB of Rickettsia sp. and Hsr of Helicobacter pylori. T5bSS (TPS) secreted proteins include adhesins such as HecA/HecB of the plant pathogen Dickeya dadantii (Erwinia chrysanthemii) and cytolysins such as ShlA/ShlB of Serratia marcescens, HpmA/HpmB of Proteus mirabilis and EthA/EthB of Edwardsiellla tarda. Type VI secretion system The type VI secretion machinery (T6SS)

is a recently characterized secretion system that appears to constitute a phage-tail-spike-like injectisome that has the potential to introduce effector proteins directly into the cytoplasm of host cells (reviewed in [32–35]), analogous to the T3SS and T4SS machineries. The T6SS machinery was first noticed as a conserved family of pathogenicity islands in Gram-negative bacteria, then was identified as encoding secretory machinery in 2006. More than a quarter Selleck MEK inhibitor of sequenced bacterial genomes contain genes for T6SS components, mostly within the proteobacteria, but also within the planctomycetes and acidobacteria. The T6SS is ICG-001 required for virulence in human and Non-specific serine/threonine protein kinase animal pathogens such as Vibrio cholerae, Edwardsiella tarda, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Francisella tularensis, and Burkholderia mallei, and also in plant pathogens such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Pectobacterium

atrosepticum and Xanthomonas oryzae [32–37]. Furthermore it is required for efficient root colonization by the nitrogen-fixing plant mutualists Mesorhizobium loti and Rhizobium leguminosarum. Intriguingly, genes encoding the T6SS are also found in some non-symbionts such as Myxococcus xanthus, Dechloromonas aromatica and Rhodopirellula baltica, where it may contribute to environmental adaptation such as biofilm formation. Based on a synthesis of the available experimental evidence, as well as sequence similarities with some components of the T4SS and of the tail spike complex of T4 phage, a model of the T6SS injectisome was proposed that includes a cytoplasmic chaperone with ATPase activity, a channel bridging from the inner to the outer membrane, and a needle tipped with a pore-forming protein [33].