The effect of sugars on the morphology of the bacterial flagellum

FEBS Letters

Hotani, Hirokazu¹  Ikeda, Takeshi¹  Seville, Mark¹ 

[1] Molecular Dynamic Assembly Project, Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology Organization, 15 Morimoto-cho, Shimogamo, Kyoto 606, Japan

关键词: Flagellum;    Carbohydrates;    Dark-field microscopy;    Morphology;    MA;    morphological agent;    K 0.5;    the sugar concentration at which 50% of the flagella have the normal helical morphology and 50% the curly;   

DOI  :  10.1016/0014-5793(93)80645-B

学科分类：生物化学/生物物理

来源: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

Using dark-field microscopy, we have found that certain sugars cause the normal-to-curly helical transition of bacterial flagella. Titration of flagella isolated from Salmonella typhimwium with 16 different carbohydrates showed that: (i) only certain sugars cause the transition. There is no obvious relationship between the simple physico-chemical properties of the sugar and whether the sugar causes the transition or not; (ii) the efficacies of sugars that do cause the transition differ markedly. For these sugars there is a relationship between efficacy and molecular size. These results suggest that the specific, though weak, binding of sugars to sites on flagella cause the morphological transition.

【 授权许可】

Unknown