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Science 15 December 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5499, pp. 2086 - 2087
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5499.2086
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Perspectives

MICROBIOLOGY:
Action at a Distance--Bacterial Flagellar Assembly

Robert M. Macnab

The rotating motion of a helical flagellum enables a bacterium to swim toward positive stimuli and away from danger. But how is the flagellum, composed of many different proteins, assembled? In a Perspective, Macnab explains how subunits of the protein flagellin flow down a channel inside the flagellum and are then added to its tip through the action of a rotating pentameric cap complex (Yonekura et al.).

The author is in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA. E-mail: robert.macnab{at}yale.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Transcriptional Phase Variation at the flhB Gene of Pseudomonas putida DOT-T1E Is Involved in Response to Environmental Changes and Suggests the Participation of the Flagellar Export System in Solvent Tolerance.
A. Segura, A. Hurtado, E. Duque, and J. L. Ramos (2004)
J. Bacteriol. 186, 1905-1909
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)