Fibronectin, an adhesive glycoprotein which is present in plasma and on many host cell surfaces of many host organisms, binds to certain bacterial pathogens. This study demonstrates the ability of Mycobacterium paratuberculosis (M.ptb) to interact with 125I-labelled fibronectin purified from bovine and ovine plasma. Two M.ptb strains were tested: a clinical isolate and a commercially available vaccine strain. Both strains showed significant fibronectin-binding activities of 22 and 41%, respectively, whereas non-pathogenic M.phlei had almost no affinity for fibronectin. Binding activities were similar for ovine and bovine fibronectin. We found that fibronectin binding by M.ptb was (1) time-dependent, reaching saturation within 90 min, (2) specific, since it was inhibited by an excess of unlabelled fibronectin but not by albumin, (3) saturable, with an apparent dissociation constant of 1.25 x 10(-9) M and a maximal number of 1,600 binding sites per bacterium, and (4) sensitive to detergents, proteases and heat treatments, indicating the protein nature of the responsible binding component(s). Scatchard plot analysis gave a straight line suggesting the presence of a single type of fibronectin receptor on M.ptb.