Ultrasensitivity of an Adaptive Bacterial Motor

Overview

Journal J Mol Biol

Publisher Elsevier

Specialties Microbiology
Molecular Biology

Date 2013 Mar 5

PMID 23454041

Citations 38

Authors

Junhua Yuan

Howard C Berg

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The flagellar motor of Escherichia coli adapts to changes in the steady-state level of the chemotaxis response regulator, CheY-P, by adjusting the number of FliM molecules to which CheY-P binds. Previous measurements of motor ultrasensitivity have been made on cells containing different amounts of CheY-P and, thus, different amounts of FliM in flagellar motors. Here, we designed an experiment to measure the sensitivity of motors containing fixed amounts of FliM, finding Hill coefficients about twice as large as those observed before. This ultrasensitivity provides further insights into the motor switching mechanism and plays important roles in chemotaxis signal amplification and coordination of multiple motors. The Hill coefficients observed here appear to be the highest known for allosteric protein complexes, either biological or synthetic. Extreme motor ultrasensitivity broadens our understanding of mechanisms of allostery and serves as an inspiration for future design of synthetic protein switches.

Citing Articles

Ultrasensitivity without conformational spread: A mechanical origin for non-equilibrium cooperativity in the bacterial flagellar motor.

Mattingly H, Tu Y ArXiv. 2025; .

PMID: 39975436 PMC: 11838781.

Structural Basis of Directional Switching by the Bacterial Flagellum.

Johnson S, Deme J, Furlong E, Caesar J, Chevance F, Hughes K Res Sq. 2024; .

PMID: 39108497 PMC: 11302681. DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3417165/v1.

Structural basis of directional switching by the bacterial flagellum.

Johnson S, Deme J, Furlong E, Caesar J, Chevance F, Hughes K Nat Microbiol. 2024; 9(5):1282-1292.

PMID: 38459206 DOI: 10.1038/s41564-024-01630-z.

Flagellar dynamics reveal fluctuations and kinetic limit in the Escherichia coli chemotaxis network.

Bano R, Mears P, Golding I, Chemla Y Sci Rep. 2023; 13(1):22891.

PMID: 38129516 PMC: 10739816. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-49784-w.

Size limits the sensitivity of kinetic schemes.

Owen J, Horowitz J Nat Commun. 2023; 14(1):1280.

PMID: 36890153 PMC: 9995461. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36705-8.

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