Type VI Secretion System in Klebsiella Pneumoniae Relation to Antibiotic Resistance and Biofilm Formation

Both drug-resistant and highly virulent K. pneumoniae have brought major challenges to clinical treatment and stimulated interest in studying K. pneumoniae. However, knowledge of the genomics, ecology, and pathogenicity of K. pneumoniae is relatively limited. Recently, the type VI secretion system (T6SS) was identified as a virulence factor in K. pneumoniae (Martin and Bachman, 2018). Furthermore, K. pneumoniae was found to exploit the T6SS nano-weapon to destroy bacterial competitors and fungi (Storey et al., 2020).

The bacterial Type VI Secretion System (T6SS) is a membrane-attached contractile phage tail that is physically and Mechanistically similar to a membrane-linked intracellular contractile phage tail. T6SS spike and tube elements, as well as anti-bacterial and anti-eukaryotic effectors, are propelled out of predatory T6SS positive cells and into target cells by a fast conformational shift in the structural framework of a sheath protein complex, according to recent research (Kudryashev et al., 2015).

However, the limited studies and lack of information on the T6SS in K. pneumoniae necessitate further exploration to clarify the physiological metabolism and pathogenic information of this clinically important bacterial species.