Talk:Pilus

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Showers4.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Micro Nerd.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:39, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

fimbrium / fimbria / fimbriae?
This article owns the fimbrium redirect, yet there is a fimbria/fimbriae article. Those appear, to my layperson's eye, to be the same thing. It seems like the information about fimbrium from this article should be offloaded to the fimbria article. I'm way out of my depth with biology articles (I prefer physics), so I won't mess with what's there, beyond just making it obvious that there's a seperate fimbria article. -Eisnel 00:28, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Yep, IAAMB and fimbria is the same as pilus. However, this article seems to be a bit obsessed about the sex pilus. There are lots of pili that simply mediate attachment to the host and have no role in exchange of DNA etc.

In fact, I was thinking of changing the line saying they 'create cytoplasmic channels' or whatnot b/c they don't really do that. More like a tube or 'truss' that connects the two cell membrane surfaces. There should still be a membrane at either end of the tube. - Anonymous - 11:28 am EST Sep 13 2006

I rewrote part of the introduction and added a separate section that describes fimbriae. I also added a brief statement that fimbriae/pili are also found in Gram positive bacteria. In the last couple of years, studies have revealed pili on the surface of several streptococci. Older studies have described pili on a few other Gram positive bacteria. NighthawkJ 19:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

missing picture
AAAHHH! where'd that picture in this article go?! Someone please rescue it!! Adenosine | Talk 01:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

MreB?
Where in the world did a connection between pili and MreB come from? If no one can support this within a reasonable amount of time I'm going to wipe that. MicroProf 00:16, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
 * And done. MicroProf 03:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Pili Transport
It should be made clear that during conjugation DNA is not transfered through the pilus. Transfer of DNA during conjugation is an active area of research, however it is now known that it does not transfer through the pilus but rather the pilus is only used for attachment. DNA actually goes through some kind of Type IV secretion system...this much I am sure of however the details of the matter should be researched more carefully before continuing an edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.195.18 (talk) 05:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The sex pili section and the figure on the page both imply that a pilus acts as a "grappling hook" to bring bacteria together and allow direct contact. I think we already all agree on this, and the references on the page already imply it, so I went ahead and edited the summary section to reflect that consensus. There are no cases that I know of where a pilus acts as a hollow "tube". That's flagellar territory. Wingman13 (talk) 09:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggested New Section: Virulence
Hello everyone,

I'm in a science communication class, and one of our assignments is to add a paragraph to a Wikipedia article on a topic that interests us. I would like to add a section to this page that looks at how presence of pili is often correlated with increased virulence in certain strains of bacteria compared with related strains. I have my proposed paragraph in my sandbox, and I'm in the process of adding my sources. I hope to make the paragraph live in a couple weeks, so if anyone would like to give me feedback before then, I'd welcome it a lot!

--Micro Nerd (talk) 06:14, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Fimbria (bacteriology) into Pilus
subtopic. no real distinction by structual family. can use family information in the larger pilus article. Artoria2e5 🌉 06:39, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

> I plan to address this exact problem soon. Single Eukaryote T / C 04:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 09:46, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

"impunity factors"?
Is this a typo for Immunity factors? DlronW (talk) 13:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)