Directed Binding of Gliding Bacterium, Mycoplasma mobile, Shown by Detachment Force and Bond Lifetime.

ABSTRACT: Mycoplasma mobile, a fish-pathogenic bacterium, features a protrusion that enables it to glide smoothly on solid surfaces at a velocity of up to 4.5 µm s(-1) in the direction of the protrusion. M. mobile glides by a repeated catch-pull-release of sialylated oligosaccharides fixed on a solid surface by hundreds of 50-nm flexible "legs" sticking out from the protrusion. This gliding mechanism may be explained by a possible directed binding of each leg with sialylated oligosaccharides, by which the leg can be detached more easily forward than backward. In the present study, we used a polystyrene bead held by optical tweezers to detach a starved cell at rest from a glass surface coated with sialylated oligosaccharides and concluded that the detachment force forward is 1.6- to 1.8-fold less tha

SUBMITTER: Tanaka A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4937208 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature