bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.07.425737; this version posted January 8, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Isolation of the Buchnera aphidicola flagellum basal body from the Buchnera membrane Matthew J. Schepers1, James N. Yelland1, Nancy A. Moran2*, David W. Taylor1,3-5* 1Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712 2Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712 3Departmnet of Molecular Biosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712 4Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78712 5LIVESTRONG Cancer Institute, Dell Medical School, Austin, TX, 78712 *Correspondence to:
[email protected] (D.W.T.);
[email protected] (N.A.M.) bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.07.425737; this version posted January 8, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. Abstract Buchnera aphidicola is an intracellular bacterial symbiont of aphids and maintains a small genome of only 600 kbps. Buchnera is thought to maintain only genes relevant to the symbiosis with its aphid host. Curiously, the Buchnera genome contains gene clusters coding for flagellum basal body structural proteins and for flagellum type III export machinery. These structures have been shown to be highly expressed and present in large numbers on Buchnera cells.