Flagellar Structures from the Bacterium Caulobacter crescentus and Implications for Phage ϕ CbK Predation of Multiflagellin Bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Caulobacter crescentus is a Gram-negative alphaproteobacterium that commonly lives in oligotrophic fresh- and saltwater environments. C. crescentus is a host to many bacteriophages, including ϕCbK and ϕCbK-like bacteriophages, which require interaction with the bacterial flagellum and pilus complexes during adsorption. It is commonly thought that the six paralogs of the flagellin gene present in C. crescentus are important for bacteriophage evasion. Here, we show that deletion of specific flagellins in C. crescentus can indeed attenuate ϕCbK adsorption efficiency, although no single deletion completely ablates ϕCbK adsorption. Thus, the bacteriophage ϕCbK likely recognizes a common motif among the six known flagellins in C. crescentus with various degrees

SUBMITTER: Montemayor EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7890551 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature