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The flagellar motor of Caulobacter crescentus generates more torque when a cell swims backwards

Nature Physics volume 12, pages 175–178 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

The bacterium Caulobacter crescentus swims by rotating a single right-handed helical filament. These cells have two swimming modes: a pusher mode, in which clockwise (CW) rotation of the filament thrusts the cell body forwards1, and a puller mode, in which counterclockwise (CCW) rotation pulls it backwards2. The situation is reversed in Escherichia coli, a bacterium that rotates several left-handed filaments CCW to drive the cell body forwards. The flagellar motor in E. coli generates more torque in the CCW direction than the CW direction in swimming cells3,4. However, C. crescentus and other bacteria with single filaments swim forwards and backwards at similar speeds, prompting the assumption that motor torques in the two modes are the same5,6. Here, we present evidence that motors in C. crescentus develop higher torques in the puller mode than in the pusher mode, and suggest that the anisotropy in torque generation is similar in the two species, despite the differences in filament handedness and motor bias.

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Figure 1: Types of cell tethering.
Figure 2: Cell-rotation characteristics.
Figure 3: Mechanism of cell rotation.
Figure 4: Anisotropic motor torques and equal swimming speeds.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. Aldridge, C. Jacobs-Wagner and M. Laub for strains. We are grateful to I. Hug and U. Jenal for strains, reagents and advice. The work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant AI016478.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-3122, USA

    Pushkar P. Lele

  2. Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

    Pushkar P. Lele, Thibault Roland, Abhishek Shrivastava, Yihao Chen & Howard C. Berg

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  1. Pushkar P. Lele
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  2. Thibault Roland
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  3. Abhishek Shrivastava
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  4. Yihao Chen
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Contributions

P.P.L. and H.C.B. designed the work; P.P.L., T.R., A.S. and Y.C. performed the research; P.P.L., T.R. and Y.C. analysed the data; P.P.L., T.R. and H.C.B. developed the experimental set-up; and P.P.L. and H.C.B. wrote the paper with inputs from all authors.

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Correspondence to Pushkar P. Lele.

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Lele, P., Roland, T., Shrivastava, A. et al. The flagellar motor of Caulobacter crescentus generates more torque when a cell swims backwards. Nature Phys 12, 175–178 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3528

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