Four different genes responsible for nonimmune immunoglobulin-binding activities within a single strain of Escherichia coli.

Certain Escherichia coli strains bind the Fc fragment of immunoglobulin G (IgG) at the bacterial cell surface. Previous work established that this nonimmune Ig binding depends on several large proteins with apparent molecular masses that can exceed 200 kDa. For E. coli strain ECOR-9, four distinct genes (designated eibA, eibC, eibD, and eibE) are responsible for Ig binding. Two eib genes are linked to eaa genes, which are homologous to genes for the autotransporter family of secreted proteins. With reference to the E. coli K-12 chromosome, the eibA-eaaA cluster is adjacent to trpA (min 28.3) while the eibC-eaaC cluster is adjacent to aspS (min 42. 0). Sequence adjacent to the eibA-eaaA cluster converges with that of strain K-12 precisely as observed for the Atlas family of prophages, suggesting that eibA is part of one of these. All four eib genes, when cloned into plasmid vectors, impart IgG binding to E. coli K-12 strains, and three impart IgA binding also. The IgG binding occurs at the bacterial cell surface, and its expression increases survival in serum by up to 3 orders of magnitude. The eib sequences predict a C-terminal peptide motif that is characteristic of outer membrane proteins, and the protein sequences show significant similarity near the C terminus to both the YadA virulence factor of Yersinia species and the universal surface protein A II of Moraxella catarrhalis. The sizes predicted for Eib proteins from DNA sequence are much smaller than their apparent sizes on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, possibly reflecting stable oligomerization.