A structural model of flagellar filament switching across multiple bacterial species

Fengbin Wang, Andrew M. Burrage, Sandra Postel, Reece E. Clark, Albina Orlova, Eric J. Sundberg, Daniel B. Kearns and Edward H. Egelman ()
Additional contact information
Fengbin Wang: University of Virginia School of Medicine
Andrew M. Burrage: Indiana University
Sandra Postel: Institute of Human Virology and University of Maryland School of Medicine
Reece E. Clark: Indiana University
Albina Orlova: University of Virginia School of Medicine
Eric J. Sundberg: Institute of Human Virology and University of Maryland School of Medicine
Daniel B. Kearns: Indiana University
Edward H. Egelman: University of Virginia School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract The bacterial flagellar filament has long been studied to understand how a polymer composed of a single protein can switch between different supercoiled states with high cooperativity. Here we present near-atomic resolution cryo-EM structures for flagellar filaments from both Gram-positive Bacillus subtilis and Gram-negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Seven mutant flagellar filaments in B. subtilis and two in P. aeruginosa capture two different states of the filament. These reliable atomic models of both states reveal conserved molecular interactions in the interior of the filament among B. subtilis, P. aeruginosa and Salmonella enterica. Using the detailed information about the molecular interactions in two filament states, we successfully predict point mutations that shift the equilibrium between those two states. Further, we observe the dimerization of P. aeruginosa outer domains without any perturbation of the conserved interior of the filament. Our results give new insights into how the flagellin sequence has been “tuned” over evolution.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01075-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-01075-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01075-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().