Structural insights into flagellar stator-rotor interactions

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

The bacterial flagellar motor is a molecular machine that can rotate the flagellar filament at high speed. The rotation is generated by the stator-rotor interaction, coupled with an ion flux through the torque-generating stator. Here we employed cryo-electron tomography to visualize the intact flagellar motor in the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. By analyzing the motor structures of wild-type and stator-deletion mutants, we not only localized the stator complex in situ, but also revealed the stator-rotor interaction at an unprecedented detail. Importantly, the stator-rotor interaction induces a conformational change in the flagella C-ring. Given our observation that a non-motile mutant, in which proton flux is blocked, cannot generate the similar conformational change, we propose that the proton-driven torque is responsible for the conformational change required for flagellar rotation.

Data availability

Data have been placed in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank under the accession numbers EMD-0534, EMD-0536, EMD-0537, and EMD-0538

The following data sets were generated

1. Chang Y
2. Moon KH
3. Zhao X
4. Norris SJ
5. Motaleb MA
6. Liu J
(2019) Asymmetric reconstruction of the in situ flagellar motor structure in Borrelia burgdorferi
Electron Microscopy Data Bank, EMD-0534.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/entry/emdb/EMD-0534
1. Chang Y
2. Moon KH
3. Zhao X
4. Norris SJ
5. Motaleb MA
6. Liu J
(2019) Local refinement of stator-rotor interaction region in flagellar motor of wild type Borrelia burgdorferi
Electron Microscopy Data Bank, EMD-0536.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/entry/emdb/EMD-0536
1. Chang Y
2. Moon KH
3. Zhao X
4. Norris SJ
5. Motaleb MA
6. Liu J
(2019) cryo-ET flagellar motor structure of motB deletion Borrelia burgdorferi
Electron Microscopy Data Bank, EMD-0537.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/entry/emdb/EMD-0537
1. Chang Y
2. Moon KH
3. Zhao X
4. Norris SJ
5. Motaleb MA
6. Liu J
(2019) Local refinement for the in-situ flagellar motor structure of motB deletion Borrelia burgdorferi
Electron Microscopy Data Bank, EMD-0538.

https://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe/entry/emdb/EMD-0538

Article and author information

Author details

Yunjie Chang

Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University, New Haven, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Ki Hwan Moon

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, East Carolina University, Greenville, United States

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

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Steven J Norris

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
MD A Motaleb

Department of Microbiology and Immunology, East Carolina University, Greenville, United States

For correspondence
MOTALEBM@ecu.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Jun Liu

Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University, West Haven, United States

For correspondence
jliu@yale.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3108-6735

Funding

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI087946)

Jun Liu

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01AI132818)

MD A Motaleb

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

Copyright

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.