Figure 6
An example image to show partial opening of the window along the cell-wall of F. johnsoniae, by a forced adsorption to the beads. Scale-bar indicates 500 nm. Crystalline ladder-like structure (inset) was observed through the window at the flexed elbow of the cell. Right panels indicate (b,c) negatively-stained and (d) replica images of the membrane fractions prepared from the disrupted cells. Note that the intracellular lattice structure glimpsed through the opened window has white stripes of the width (~8 nm) and spacing (~15 nm) common to those observed in isolated membrane fractions, suggesting the identity of the structures. Extracellular adhesins are postulated to move along looped helical tracks, operated by some motor proteins in the cell envelope27. The observed structure could be a part of the architecture of that motility system25,26. Here, we simply show that our new method has a good potential to exhibit the presence of such intracellular-structures. More details will be published separately.
