Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2018 Jun 27;399(7):799-808.
doi: 10.1515/hsz-2018-0157.

Twitch or swim: towards the understanding of prokaryotic motion based on the type IV pilus blueprint

Bertram Daum  1   2 , Vicki Gold  1   3
Affiliations
Free article
Review

Twitch or swim: towards the understanding of prokaryotic motion based on the type IV pilus blueprint

Bertram Daum et al. Biol Chem. .
Free article

Abstract

Bacteria and archaea are evolutionarily distinct prokaryotes that diverged from a common ancestor billions of years ago. However, both bacteria and archaea assemble long, helical protein filaments on their surface through a machinery that is conserved at its core. In both domains of life, the filaments are required for a diverse array of important cellular processes including cell motility, adhesion, communication and biofilm formation. In this review, we highlight the recent structures of both the type IV pilus machinery and the archaellum determined in situ. We describe the current level of functional understanding and discuss how this relates to the pressures facing bacteria and archaea throughout evolution.

Keywords: archaellum; cryoEM; flagellum; structure; twitching motility; type IV pili.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Albers, S.V. and Jarrell, K.F. (2018). The Archaellum: an update on the unique Archaeal motility structure. Trends Microbiol. 4, 351–362.
    1. Albers, S.V., Szabó, Z., and Driessen, A.J.M. (2003). Archaeal homolog of bacterial type IV prepilin signal peptidases with broad substrate specificity. J. Bacteriol. 185, 3918–3925.
    1. Banerjee, A., Ghosh, A., Mills, D.J., Kahnt, J., Vonck, J., and Albers, S.V. (2012). FlaX, a unique component of the crenarchaeal archaellum, forms oligomeric ring-shaped structures and interacts with the motor ATPase FlaI. J. Biol. Chem. 287, 43322–43330.
    1. Banerjee, A., Tsai, C., Chaudhury, P., Tripp, P., Arvai, A.S., Ishida, J.P., Tainer, J.A., and Albers, S.V. (2015). FlaF is a beta-sandwich protein that anchors the archaellum in the archaeal cell envelope by binding the S-layer protein. Structure 23, 863–872.
    1. Bardy, S.L. and Jarrell, K.F. (2003). Cleavage of preflagellins by an aspartic acid signal peptidase is essential for flagellation in the archaeon Methanococcus voltae. Mol. Microbiol. 50, 1339–1347.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources