Forming Strong Bonds: Building Microbial Surface Structures by Donor-Strand Exchange

Microbial organisms assemble a diverse array of surface structures to facilitate critical functions including motility, adhesion, and biofilm formation. As extracellular organelles, pili and related surface structures must be able to function in harsh environments and withstand various stressors. Microbes have evolved different strategies to assemble structures able to function under these challenging conditions. This review focuses on bacterial and archaeal systems that utilize donor-strand exchange (DSE) interactions between subunit proteins. DSE is a noncovalent assembly mechanism where one subunit contributes a β-strand to complete the structure of its neighboring subunit. This subunit-subunit interaction is one of the strongest noncovalent interactions known, with the resulting fiber being capable of withstanding extreme environmental stresses and shear forces. We summarize the structural biology and biogenesis of these surface structures, highlighting how DSE-mediated polymerization contributes to the assembly of extracellular structures in both the bacterial and archaeal domains.