Length-dependent flagellar growth of Vibrio alginolyticus revealed by real time fluorescent imaging

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Abstract

Bacterial ﬂagella are extracellular ﬁlaments that drive swimming in bacteria. During its assembly, ﬂagellins are transported unfolded through the central channel in the ﬂagellum to the growing tip. Here we applied in vivo ﬂuorescent imaging to monitor in real time the Vibrio alginolyticus polar ﬂagella growth. The ﬂagellar growth rate is found to be highly length-dependent. Initially, the ﬂagellum grows at a constant rate (50nm/min) when shorter than 1500nm. The growth rate decays sharply when the ﬂagellum grows longer. We modeled ﬂagellin transport inside the channel as a one-dimensional diffusive process with an injection force at its base. When the ﬂagellum is short, its growth rate is determined by the loading speed at the base. Only when the ﬂagellum grows longer does diffusion of ﬂagellin become the rate-limiting step, dramatically reducing the growth rate. Our results shed new light on the dynamic building process of this complex extracellular structure.

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Meiting Chen

Physics, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan, Republic of China

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Ziyi Zhao

Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Peking University, Beijing, China

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jin Yang

Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Peking University, Beijing, China

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Kai Peng

Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Peking University, Beijing, China

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Matthew A.B. Baker

EMBL Australia Node for Single Molecule Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Fan Bai

Biodynamic Optical Imaging Center (BIOPIC), Peking University, Beijing, China

For correspondence
fbai@pku.edu.cn

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Chien-Jung Lo

Phyiscs, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan, Republic of China

For correspondence
cjlo@phy.ncu.edu.tw

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8078-4970

Funding

Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (MOST-103-2112-M-008-010-MY3)

Chien-Jung Lo

National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31370847,No.31327901)

Fan Bai

Human Frontier Science Program (RGP0041/2015)

Fan Bai
Chien-Jung Lo

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.