title: Torque-induced precession of bacterial flagella.
abstract: The bacterial flagellar motor is an ion-driven rotary machine in the cell envelope of bacteria. Using a gold nanoparticle as a probe, we observed the precession of flagella during rotation. Since the mechanism of flagella precession was unknown, we investigated it using a combination of full simulations, theory, and experiments. The results show that the mechanism can be well explained by fluid mechanics. The validity of our theory was confirmed by our full simulation, which was utilized to predict both the filament tilt angle and motor torque from experimental flagellar precession data. The knowledge obtained is important in understanding mechanical properties of the bacterial motor and hook.
authors.affiliation: Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shimogonya
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoichiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sawano
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiromichi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wakebe
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuichi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Inoue
authors.affiliation: Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.|Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
authors.forename: Akihiko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ishijima
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering and Robotics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.
authors.forename: Takuji
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ishikawa
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000502:physiology*; D005407:Flagella / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012399:Rotation; D019415:Torque