Major component of the type IV pilus (T4P) that plays a role in cellular adherence, microcolony formation, resistance to neutrophil mediated killing, twitching motility as well as transformation (PubMed:27213957). Mediates the attachment and the formation of bacterial microcolonies on host epithelial cells. Mechanistically, pili retractation induces host NF-kappa-B activation in infected cells, which is temporally associated with the formation of gonococcal microcolonies (PubMed:27213957). The pili are polar flexible filaments of about 5.4 nanometers diameter and 2.5 micrometers average length; they consist of only a single polypeptide chain arranged in a helical configuration of five subunits per turn in the assembled pilus. The O-linked glycan identified as Gal-GlcNAc disaccharide in PubMed:7477282 and PubMed:10048019 is now identified as either a hexosyl-diacetamidotrideoxyhexoside (DATDHex) by mass spectrometry in PubMed:15249686, or alpha-D-galactopyranosyl-(1->3)-2,4-diacetamido-2,4-dideoxy-beta-D-glucopyranoside (DADDGlc) by X-ray diffraction in PubMed:16949362. It is not clear whether there is a chemical difference in the glycosylation of the two derivatives of strain MS11 used in these experiments, or not. In some MS11 derivative strains, Ser-75 is modified to O-(2-aminoethylphosphoryl)serine, and in some other derivatives that can be secondarily modified to O-(2-cholinephosphoryl)serine by N-methylation. Deletion mutants show a complete absence of observable pili. Belongs to the N-Me-Phe pilin family. In PubMed:413571 it is said that 50% of the peptides have N-methyl-Phe and 50% begin with Thr-9. N-terminal methylation produces preview during Edman degradation, which makes this appear to happen when the peptide is completely N-terminal methylated.