Dancing with the Star: Borrelia burgdorferi, a Solo Dancer with All the Right Moves
Ching Wooen Sze, Hui Xu, Md A. Motaleb, Charles W. Wolgemuth, Jun Liu, Nyles W. Charon and Chunhao Li
from: Lyme Disease and Relapsing Fever Spirochetes: Genomics, Molecular Biology, Host Interactions and Disease Pathogenesis (Edited by: Justin D. Radolf and D. Scott Samuels). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2021) Pages: 221-250.
Abstract
Spirochetes are unique in many features, from the physical morphology down to the molecular mechanism used for gene regulation. As the model organism discussed in this chapter, the Lyme disease bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi shows us how spirochetes do it differently when it comes to the placement of flagella, coordination of two PF bundles during motility, a spirochete-specific flagellar collar protein in the basal body/motor complex, and the absolute reliance on motility and chemotaxis for disease transmission and colonization. Motility and chemotaxis are one of the most common traits adapted by different bacterial species, yet the 'classical' paradigms of hierarchical transcriptional regulation of flagellar genes and coordination of motility and chemotaxis derived from study of model bacteria do not fit in the world of spirochetes. As the genetic and molecular tool advances in the field of B. burgdorferi, the significance of more motility and chemotaxis genes begin to unravel making it possible to establish a working model best suited for spirochetes read more ...
