Structure and in situ organisation of the Pyrococcus furiosus archaellum machinery
- Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Germany
- University of Regensburg, Germany
- University of Freiburg, Germany
Abstract
The archaellum is the macromolecular machinery that archaea use for propulsion or surface adhesion, enabling them to proliferate and invade new territories. The molecular composition of the archaellum and of the motor that drives it appears to be entirely distinct from that of the functionally equivalent bacterial flagellum and flagellar motor. Yet, the structure of the archaellum machinery is scarcely known. Using combined modes of electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM), we have solved the structure of the Pyrococcus furiosus archaellum filament at 4.2 Å resolution and visualise the architecture and organisation of its motor complex in situ. This allows us to build a structural model combining the archaellum and its motor complex, paving the way to a molecular understanding of archaeal swimming motion.
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Author details
Funding
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Open-access funding)
- Janet Vonck
- Werner Kühlbrandt
European Commission (Archaellum Project ID: 311523)
- Paushali Chaudhury
- Sonja V Albers
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Daum et al.
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.
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Structure and in situ organisation of the Pyrococcus furiosus archaellum machinery
eLife 6:e27470.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27470
