Waveform analysis and structure of flagella and basal complexes from Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus 109J

Abstract

The structure of sheathed flagella from Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus was investigated. The first three periods of these flagella were characterized by progressively smaller wavelengths and amplitudes in periods more distal to the cell. The damped appearance was due to a single nonrandom transition between two helical structures within each filament. The intersection of the two helices, one of which was a threefold-reduced miniature of the other, occurred at a fixed distance along the filament and resulted in a shift in the flagellar axis. Flagella increased in length as the cells aged and assumed a constant miniature waveform at their distal ends. The core filament was the principal determinant of flagellar morphology. It was composed of 28,000-and 29,500-dalton polypeptides. The 28,000-dalton subunits were located in the cell-proximal segment of the filament, and the 29,500-dalton subunits were located in the more distal region. The heteromorphous appearance of bdellovibrio flagella arose from the sequential assembly of these subunits. The basal complex associated with core filaments was examined because of its potential involvement in sheath formation. Bdellovibrio basal organelles were generally similar to those of other gram-negative species, but appeared to lack a disk analogous to the outer membrane-associated L ring which is a normal component of gram-negative basal complexes.

A new α‐proteobacterial clade of Bdellovibrio‐like predators: implications for the mitochondrial endosymbiotic theory

“…1B). The predators possessed a single polar flagellum, but distinctively from BALOs, this flagellum was not sheathed and did not exhibit the typical damped waveform of BALOs (Thomashow and Rittenberg, 1985). These morphological characters resembled those of Micavibrio , a genus first described in 1982 (Lambina et al ., 1982) but little mentioned in the literature.…”

The archaeal flagellum: a different kind of prokaryotic motility structure

“…All archaeal £agella are likely composed of multiple £agellins [8], while most bacterial £agella are composed of a single £agellin species (although there are numerous exceptions, e.g. [44,100,101]). Archaeal £agellins usually migrate in SDSP AGE as much larger proteins than predicted from their gene sequence.…”

The flagella of ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ and its movement in planta

“…The number of flagellin-encoding genes in bacterial genomes varies and may range between one (Escherichia coli) and seven (Vibrio parahaemolyticus) (Fedorov and Kostyukova, 1984;Kim and McCarter, 2000;Stewart and McCarter, 2003). The flagellar filaments in E. coli K-12 are built up from only one flagellin protein (FliC) (Turner et al, 2012), whereas Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus (Thomashow and Rittenberg, 1985), Campylobacter coli (Guerry et al, 1990), Caulobacter crescentus (Driks et al, 1989), Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Deakin et al, 1999;Mohari et al, 2018), Rhizobium lupini strain H13-3 and Sinorhizobium meliloti have at least two flagellin proteins forming their flagellar filaments (Scharf et al, 2001).…”