The blp1 gene is required for the a

The blp1 gene is required for the adhesion of AbIC I strain to lung epithelium cellsTo investigate the role of IC-associated blp1 variants on the adhesion phenotype, strains comprising AbIC I and AbIC II, their blp1 deletion mutants and Δblp1 strains complemented with plasmids containing respective blp1 allelic variants were tested for the adhesive propertiesusing mouse lung epithelium LL/2 cells (see Materials and Methods). The blp1 deletion resulted in a reduction of adhesion of AbIC IΔblp1 strain by three-fold (Fig. 3, left panel), whereas the loss of blp1 allele in IC II strain had no effect on the adhesion (Fig. 3, right panel).Nevertheless, while dispensable for the adhesion of AbIC II strain, the blp1IC II allele was able to restore adhesive properties of AbIC IΔblp1 mutant at the level, similar to that of cognate version of blp1 thereby indicating functionality of both blp1 variants (Fig. 3, left panel). Therefore, both blp1 gene variants encode proteins that are functional in supporting adhesion of A. baumannii to lung epithelium cells, though blp1 deletion in AbIC II strain had no impact on this phenotype.