- 著者
- Rei Abe Yoshizumi Shiori Kobayashi Mizuki Gohara Kokoro Hayashi Chojiro Kojima Seiji Kojima Yuki Sudo Yasuo Asami Michio Homma
- 出版者
- The Biophysical Society of Japan
- 雑誌
- BIOPHYSICS (ISSN:13492942)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.9, pp.21-29, 2013 (Released:2013-02-05)
- 参考文献数
- 40
- 被引用文献数
- 2 2
Flagellar motors embedded in bacterial membranes are molecular machines powered by specific ion flows. Each motor is composed of a stator and a rotor and the interactions of those components are believed to generate the torque. Na+ influx through the PomA/PomB stator complex of Vibrio alginolyticus is coupled to torque generation and is speculated to trigger structural changes in the cytoplasmic domain of PomA that interacts with a rotor protein in the C-ring, FliG, to drive the rotation. In this study, we tried to overproduce the cytoplasmic loop of PomA (PomA-Loop), but it was insoluble. Thus, we made a fusion protein with a small soluble tag (GB1) which allowed us to express and characterize the recombinant protein. The structure of the PomA-Loop seems to be very elongated or has a loose tertiary structure. When the PomA-Loop protein was produced in E. coli, a slight dominant effect was observed on motility. We conclude that the cytoplasmic loop alone retains a certain function.