Flagellar motors of swimming bacteria contain an incomplete set of stator units to ensure robust motility.

ABSTRACT: Flagellated bacteria, like Escherichia coli, swim by rotating helical flagellar filaments powered by rotary flagellar motors at their base. Motor dynamics are sensitive to the load it drives. It was previously thought that motor load was high when driving filament rotation in free liquid environments. However, torque measurements from swimming bacteria revealed substantially lower values compared to single-motor studies. We addressed this inconsistency through motor resurrection experiments, abruptly attaching a 1-micrometer-diameter bead to the filament to ensure high load. Unexpectedly, we found that the motor works with only half the complement of stator units when driving filament rotation. This suggests that the motor is not under high load during bacterial swimming, which we c

SUBMITTER: Niu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10624342 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature