著者

難波 啓一

出版者

一般社団法人日本生物物理学会

雑誌

生物物理 (ISSN:05824052)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, no.3, pp.118-123, 2003-05-25

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The bacterial flagellar filament is a helical propeller for the rapid swimming of bacteria. Its gently curved and iwisted tubular structure is made of a single protein, flagellin, by its self-assembly in a helical manner. The mechanism for the formaiion of the left-handed helical tube for swimming and its dynamic polymorphic transition into right-handed forms for tumbling in response to quick reversal of the motor rotation has been revealed in the filament and protofilament structures at atomic detail obtained by convergent application of electron cryomicroscopy, X-ray fiber diffraction and X-ray crystallography with new technological devices in each of these methods.