Use the information in the following paragraph to answer the question.A hypothetical bacterium swims among human intestinal contents until it finds a suitable location on the intestinal lining. It adheres to the intestinal lining using a feature that also protects it from phagocytes, bacteriophages, and dehydration. Fecal matter from a human in whose intestine this bacterium lives can spread the bacterium, even after being mixed with water and boiled. The bacterium is not susceptible to the penicillin family of antibiotics. It contains no plasmids and relatively little peptidoglycan.Adherence to the intestinal lining by this bacterium is due to its possession ofa) fimbriae.b)pili.c) a flagellum.d) a capsule.e) a cell wall with an outer lipopolysaccharide membrane.

Bacteria have special appendages which helps them to attach a surface of other bacterial cell or host cell. Two types of appendages are commonly present in the bacteria that can provide adherence capability to bacteria and they are fimbriae and pili.

Pilli are longer that fimbriae and less in number and mainly used as sex pilus to transfer the genetic material to other bacterial or to receive the genetic material from other bacteria.

So the main cell surface appendages provide adherence property to bacteria are fimbriae which are large in number nearly 1000 and located all around the cell surface of bacteria. Therefore the correct answer is a) fimbriae.