Are you sure that you mean "pili" rather than "fimbriae"? ;-}

A pili or pilus is a hair like appendage found on the surface of many bacteria. The terms pilus and fimbria can be used interchangeably and may be pili shorter then fimbria the required for bacterial conjugation and stable biofilm formation.

Thank you for the reply

I disagree, bacteria may have very many relatively short fimbriae to help them attach to surfaces or form a pellicle but only a few longer pili, which are involved in DNA transfer during conjugation (originally called a sex- or F-pilus, for "Fertility") or involved in "twitching motility" (type IV pili). Brock Biology of Microorganisms, 12th edn, 2009.

In the early 1950s, nonflagellar appendages were first observed on the surface of Gram-negative bacteria by electron microscopy (Duguid et al., 1955). Much later, the first reported Gram-positive bacterium shown to contain pili is Corynebacterium renale (Yanagawa et al., 1968). Duguid named these Gram-negative proteinaceous organelles fimbriae (Latin word for threads; singular, fimbria) whereas Brinton called them pili (Latin word for hair; singular, pilus) (Brinton, 1965). At present, esearchers use both terms interchangeably.

I am concern with only pili used for the biofilm formation, its usually short and could you suggest some pili quantification method

It depends on the bacteria that will constitute your biofilm. It's possible to quantify the expression of pili genes by qPCR, or visualize those expressions using pili genes recombined with a fluorescent gene and microscopy.

Have a look at my article for an example in biofilms formed by E. coli and expressing curli: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23938962_Nickel_promotes_biofilm_formation_of_curli-proficient_K-12_Escherichia_coli/file/2c2ad22b3afdd7c3e303884c6eca1e35.pdf

Hope this helps.

Article Nickel Promotes Biofilm Formation by Escherichia coli K-12 S...

Thanks Claire, I am working on ESKAPE pathogen, do you have any idea about related pili genes

Sorry, I have no experience on pili/adhesins in the ESKAPE pathogens (Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species).

acm is mentionned as important for adhesion and pathogenicity in Ent. faecium I believe.

Thanks Perrin

Dear Karthikeyan, there a report using Fourier transform infrared

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jbio.201000027/pdf

With best regards

Thanks Bueno