New insights into the role and formation of flagella in Salmonella
Rasika M. Harshey
from: Salmonella: From Genome to Function (Edited by: Steffen Porwollik). Caister Academic Press, U.K. (2011)
Abstract
The flagellum of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is the best studied of all flagellar systems. The major function of the flagellum is to enable swimming and chemotaxis in liquid media, and swarming on surfaces. New structural information, along with biochemical, physicochemical and genetic analyses has greatly accelerated our understanding of the self-assembly of this highly sophisticated nano-machine. The study of swarming motility is a relatively new field, but has begun to reveal new roles for the flagellum, new functions for motility genes and new regulatory circuits that control the decision between motility and sessility. Morphological and functional similarities between flagella and needle complexes, discovery of partial flagellar structures that likely function in export rather than motility, and a rapidly accumulating genome database are gradually illuminating the evolutionary origins of the flagellum read more ...
