Seminar

Imaging and imagining the bacterial flagellum

Prof. Eric Sundberg

Flagella are cell surface protein appendages that are critical for bacterial swimming motility and pathogenesis. Flagellar filaments are constructed from thousands of copies of the protein flagellin, or FliC, when individual unfolded FliC subunits transverse the filament pore and are folded and sorted into place by the flagellar capping protein, FliD. To define the structures and coordinated movements of FliC and FliD by which they interact to build functional flagella, we have employed high-resolution imaging techniques, including X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, as well as a combined approach involving bacterial genetics, motility assays, peptide array analysis and molecular modeling. Our results reveal potential target sites for novel inhibitors that could interfere with bacterial motility and pathogenicity.