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Science 16 March 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5511, pp. 2065 - 2067
DOI: 10.1126/science.291.5511.2065a
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News of the Week

CELL BIOLOGY:
How Bacterial Flagella Flip Their Switch

Dennis Normile

Bacteria move by rotating their flagella, long, whiplike filaments that project from the cells. The flagellar filaments are helical, so in order to change direction, the bacterial cell generates a torque on the flagellar filaments that flips them into the opposite helix. But how does flagellin, the protein that makes up the filaments, achieve this dramatic structural shift? An x-ray crystallographic study of the protein described in this week's issue of Nature suggests that a sharp change within a very small "switch" region of flagellin is all that it takes to flip the left-handed flagellar helix into the right-handed form.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)