Lines 316–317: We did not notice this point. Polysaccharide chain may not be very long. Many of the products of the hps gene cluster encode glycosyltransferases and pseudopilins, which are, respectively, involved in the synthesis and secretion of the slime. The secretion of slime is likely mediated by some molecular machinery that is otherwise involved in type II secretion/motility machinery. Reference 24 was added.
Lines 316–317: This model for slime secretion suggests that rather than slime being comprised of a single, long, polysaccharide, it is made of smaller subunits that are secreted in a step-wise fashion. The authors should connect this idea to the finding that pseudopilins appear to be part of the molecular machinery, as the model and the data are coherent on this point.