Spatial arrangement of several flagellins within bacterial flagella improves motility in different environments

Marco J. Kühn, Felix K. Schmidt, Nicola E. Farthing, Florian M. Rossmann, Bina Helm, Laurence G. Wilson (), Bruno Eckhardt () and Kai M. Thormann ()
Additional contact information
Marco J. Kühn: Institut für Mikrobiologie und Molekularbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Felix K. Schmidt: Fachbereich Physik und LOEWE Zentrum für Synthetische Mikrobiologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Nicola E. Farthing: University of York, Heslington
Florian M. Rossmann: Institut für Mikrobiologie und Molekularbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Bina Helm: Institut für Mikrobiologie und Molekularbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen
Laurence G. Wilson: University of York, Heslington
Bruno Eckhardt: Fachbereich Physik und LOEWE Zentrum für Synthetische Mikrobiologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Kai M. Thormann: Institut für Mikrobiologie und Molekularbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Bacterial flagella are helical proteinaceous fibers, composed of the protein flagellin, that confer motility to many bacterial species. The genomes of about half of all flagellated species include more than one flagellin gene, for reasons mostly unknown. Here we show that two flagellins (FlaA and FlaB) are spatially arranged in the polar flagellum of Shewanella putrefaciens, with FlaA being more abundant close to the motor and FlaB in the remainder of the flagellar filament. Observations of swimming trajectories and numerical simulations demonstrate that this segmentation improves motility in a range of environmental conditions, compared to mutants with single-flagellin filaments. In particular, it facilitates screw-like motility, which enhances cellular spreading through obstructed environments. Similar mechanisms may apply to other bacterial species and may explain the maintenance of multiple flagellins to form the flagellar filament.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07802-w 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:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-07802-w

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07802-w

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 ().