A Rotary Motor Drives Flavobacterium Gliding

Abstract

Cells of Flavobacterium johnsoniae, a rod-shaped bacterium devoid of pili or flagella, glide over glass at speeds of 2–4 μm/s [ 1 ]. Gliding is powered by a protonmotive force [ 2 ], but the machinery required for this motion is not known. Usually, cells move along straight paths, but sometimes they exhibit a reciprocal motion, attach near one pole and flip end over end, or rotate. This behavior is similar to that of a Cytophaga species described earlier [ 3 ]. Development of genetic tools for F. johnsoniae led to discovery of proteins involved in gliding [ 4 ]. These include the surface adhesin SprB that forms filaments about 160 nm long by 6 nm in diameter, which, when labeled with a fluorescent antibody [ 2 ] or a latex bead [ 5 ], are seen to move longitudinally down the length of a cell, occasionally shifting positions to the right or the left. Evidently, interaction of these filaments with a surface produces gliding. To learn more about the gliding motor, we sheared cells to reduce the number and size of SprB filaments and tethered cells to glass by adding anti-SprB antibody. Cells spun about fixed points, mostly counterclockwise, rotating at speeds of 1 Hz or more. The torques required to sustain such speeds were large, comparable to those generated by the flagellar rotary motor. However, we found that a gliding motor runs at constant speed rather than at constant torque. Now, there are three rotary motors powered by protonmotive force: the bacterial flagellar motor, the Fo ATP synthase, and the gliding motor.