Many studies have been conducted to elucidate the relationship between energy metabolic pathways (glycolysis and respiration) and flagellar motility in mammalian sperm, but the contribution of glycolysis to sperm motility has not yet been fully elucidated. In the present study, we performed detailed analysis of mouse sperm flagellar motility for further understanding of the contribution of glyc...

The bacterial flagellum is a complex apparatus assembled of more than 20 different proteins. The flagellar basal body traverses the cell wall, whereas the curved hook connects the basal body to the whip-like flagellar filament that protrudes several µm from the bacterial cell. The flagellum has traditionally been regarded only as a motility organelle, but more recently it has become evident tha...

This study uses electron tomography linked to a variety of other EM methods to provide an integrated view of the flagellar pocket and basal body area of the African trypanosome procyclic trypomastigote. We reveal the pocket as an asymmetric membranous 'balloon' with two boundary structures. One of these - the collar - defines the flagellum exit point. The other defines the entry point of the fl...

P roponents of the intelligent design (ID) explanation for how organisms developed claim that the bacterial flagellum (BF) is irreducibly complex. They argue that this structure is so complicated that it could not have emerged through random selection but had to be designed by an intelligent entity. One part of this claim is that each flagellar component is used solely for the purpose of making...

1 2 Colleen R. Courtney, Loralyn M. Cozy, and Daniel B. Kearns* 3 4 Indiana University 5 Department of Biology 6 Bloomington, IN 47408 7 8 Current address: 9 New York University 10 Sackler Institute of Microbiology-Parasitology 11 New York, NY 10016 12 13 Current address: 14 University of Hawaii 15 Department of Microbiology 16 Honolulu, HI 96822 17 18 19 Corresponding author 20 Email: dbkearns...

Prokaryotic flagellum is considered as the only known example of a biological “wheel,” system capable converting action rotatory actuator into continuous propulsive force. For this reason, flagella are an interesting case study in soft robotics and they represent appealing source inspiration for design underwater robots. A great number flagellum-inspired devices exists, but these ...

The flagella of mammalian sperm possess certain structural characteristics that distinguish them from simple flagella. Most notable of these features are the sheath (surrounding the axoneme), the outer dense fibers of ODFs (that are attached to the outer doublets), and the connecting piece (which anchors the ODFs at the base of the flagellum). In this study, the significance of these specialize...