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The ancient E-ring in bacterial flagellar motors.

Siqi Zhu1,2, Xueyin Feng1,2,3, Yanran Liu1,2,3

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Marine Biology, Guangdong Provincial Observation and Research Station for Coastal Upwelling Ecosystem, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, China.

FEMS Microbiology Reviews
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PubMed
Summary

The bacterial flagellum

Keywords:
E-ringevolutionflagellamotilitymotorscaffold

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Area of Science:

  • Microbiology
  • Structural Biology
  • Biophysics

Background:

  • The bacterial flagellum is a complex nanomachine enabling motility.
  • Periplasmic auxiliary structures, like the E-ring, are less understood.
  • The E-ring's composition was recently identified as the protein FlgY and its homologs.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the composition and evolutionary origin of the bacterial flagellar E-ring.
  • To understand the structural role of FlgY in the flagellar motor.
  • To explore the functional implications of the E-ring across different bacterial species.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of cryo-electron tomography data.
  • Comparative genomics to trace the evolutionary presence of FlgY homologs.
  • Structural analysis of the E-ring's ring-spoke formation around the MS-ring.

Main Results:

  • The E-ring is composed of FlgY dimers forming a conserved ring-spoke structure.
  • The E-ring is widely conserved in Bacteria, except in β- and γ-proteobacteria, suggesting an ancient origin.
  • The functional impact of the E-ring on motility varies across bacterial phyla.

Conclusions:

  • The bacterial E-ring, composed of FlgY, is an ancient structure with a conserved architecture.
  • Its presence and function differ across bacterial lineages, hinting at diverse roles in flagellar motor mechanics.
  • Further research is needed to elucidate its precise role and ancestral motor function.