Eukaryotic cilia and flagella are long, thin organelles, and diffusion from the cytoplasm may not be able to support the high ATP concentrations needed for dynein motor activity. We discovered enzyme activities in the Chlamydomonas reinhardtii flagellum that catalyze three steps of the lower half of glycolysis (phosphoglycerate mutase, enolase, and pyruvate kinase). These enzymes can generate o...

The disassembly of cilia and flagella is linked to the cell cycle and environmental cues. We have found that ubiquitination of flagellar proteins is an integral part of flagellar disassembly. Free ubiquitin and the ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme CrUbc13 are detected in flagella, and several proteins are ubiquitinated in isolated flagella when exogenous ubiquitin and adenosine triphosphatase are a...

Eukaryotic flagella contain tens of thousands of dynein motor enzymes, arranged in regular arrays along the outer doublet microtubules of the axoneme -the internal cytoskeleton of a flagellum or cilium. These dyneins produce longitudinal sliding between the doublet microtubules. They must interact cooperatively to generate the bending waves that are required for efficient propulsion of spermato...

identification of a novel flagellar gene, fliZ. flagellar biosynthetic genes fliP and fliQ and Nucleotide sequences of Bacillus subtilis

A devescovinid flagellate from termites exhibits rapid gliding movements only when in close contact with other cells or with a substrate. Locomotion is powered not by the cell's own flagella nor by its remarkable rotary axostyle, but by the flagella of thousands of rod bacteria which live on its surface. That the ectosymbiotic bacteria actually propel the protozoan was shown by the following: (...

Most bacteria that swim are propelled by flagellar filaments, which are driven by a rotary motor powered by proton flux. The mechanism of the flagellar motor is discussed by reforming the model proposed by the present authors in 2005. It is shown that the mean strength of Coulomb field produced by a proton passing the channel is very strong in the Mot assembly so that the Mot assembly can be a ...

The relaxation (straightening) of flagellar rigor waves, which is known to be induced by micromolar ATP concentrations was investigated with respect to its dependence on the binding and hydrolysis of ATP. Flagellar rigor waves were formed by the dilution of demembranated, reactivated sea urchin (Lytechinus pictus) spermatozoa into ATP-free buffer. Relaxation in response to nucleotide was quanti...

The bacterial flagellum is important for motility and adaptation to environmental niches. The sequence of events required for the synthesis of the flagellar apparatus has been extensively studied, yet the events that dictate where the flagellum is placed at the onset of flagellar biosynthesis remain largely unknown. We addressed this question for alphaproteobacteria by using the polarly flagell...

The bacterial flagellar motor is a remarkable nanomachine that provides motility through flagellar rotation. Prior structural studies have revealed the stunning complexity of the purified rotor and C-ring assemblies from flagellar motors. In this study, we used high-throughput cryo-electron tomography and image analysis of intact Borrelia burgdorferi to produce a three-dimensional (3-D) model o...

Antibodies raised against the Sarkosyl-insoluble, major flagellar glycoprotein fraction, mastigonemes, were used to determine the source of flagellar surface glycoproteins and to define the general properties of flagellar surface assembly in Euglena. After suitable absorption, mastigoneme antiserum reacts with several specific mastigoneme glycoproteins but does not bind either to the other majo...