RESEARCH ARTICLE Structural insights into flagellar stator– rotor interactions Yunjie Chang1,2†, Ki Hwan Moon1,3†‡, Xiaowei Zhao2,4†§, Steven J Norris4, MD A Motaleb3*, Jun Liu1,2,4* 1Department of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, United States; 2Microbial Sciences Institute, Yale University, West Haven, United States; 3Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, United States; 4Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, McGovern Medical School at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, United States Abstract The bacterial flagellar motor is a molecular machine that can rotate the flagellar filament at high speed. The rotation is generated by the stator–rotor interaction, coupled with an ion flux through the torque-generating stator. Here we employed cryo-electron tomography to visualize the intact flagellar motor in the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. By analyzing the motor structures of wild-type and stator-deletion mutants, we not only localized the *For correspondence: stator complex in situ, but also revealed the stator–rotor interaction at an unprecedented detail.
[email protected] (MDAM); Importantly, the stator–rotor interaction induces a conformational change in the flagella C-ring.
[email protected] (JL) Given our observation that a non-motile mutant, in which proton flux is blocked, cannot generate †These authors contributed the similar conformational change, we propose that the proton-driven torque is responsible for the equally to this work conformational change required for flagellar rotation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.48979.001 Present address: ‡Division of Marine Bioscience, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan, Republic of Korea; §HHMI Introduction Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, United States Many bacterial pathogens require motility to infect, disseminate, and cause disease in humans and other mammalian hosts.