The presence and absence of periplasmic rings in bacterial flagellar motors correlates with stator type
- California Institute of Technology, United States
- University of Southern California, United States
- Cited 5
- Views 1,599
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Abstract
The bacterial flagellar motor, a cell-envelope-embedded macromolecular machine that functions as a cellular propeller, exhibits significant structural variability between species. Different torque-generating stator modules allow motors to operate in different pH, salt or viscosity levels. How such diversity evolved is unknown. Here we use electron cryo-tomography to determine the in situ macromolecular structures of three Gammaproteobacteria motors: Legionella pneumophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Shewanella oneidensis, providing the first views of intact motors with dual stator systems. Complementing our imaging with bioinformatics analysis, we find a correlation between the motor's stator system and its structural elaboration. Motors with a single H+-driven stator have only the core periplasmic P- and L-rings; those with dual H+-driven stators have an elaborated P-ring; and motors with Na+ or Na+/H+-driven stators have both their P- and L-rings embellished. Our results suggest an evolution of structural elaboration that may have enabled pathogenic bacteria to colonize higher-viscosity environments in animal hosts.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01 AI127401)
- Mohammed Kaplan
- Debnath Ghosal
- Poorna Subramanian
- Catherine M Oikonomou
- Andreas Kjaer
- Davi R Ortega
- Ariane Briegel
- Grant J Jensen
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Rubicon fellowship)
- Mohammed Kaplan
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Sahand Pirbadian
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA955014-1-0294)
- Mohamed Y El-Naggar
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Edward H Egelman, University of Virginia, United States
Publication history
- Received: November 8, 2018
- Accepted: December 19, 2018
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 16, 2019 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: February 14, 2019 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2019, Kaplan 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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Further reading
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- Computational and Systems Biology
- Evolutionary Biology
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- Chromosomes and Gene Expression
- Evolutionary Biology
