The predatory bacterium Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus swims rapidly by rotation of a single, polar flagellum comprised of a helical filament of flagellin monomers, contained within a membrane sheath and powered by a basal motor complex. Bdellovibrio collides with, enters and replicates within bacterial prey, a process previously suggested to firstly require flagellar motility and then flagellar sh...

In prokaryotes, flagellar biogenesis is a complicated process involving over 40 genes. The phytopathogen Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris possesses a single polar flagellum, which is essential for the swimming motility. A sigma54 activator, FleQ, has been shown to be required for the transcriptional activation of the flagellar type III secretion system (F-T3SS), rod, and hook proteins. One...

Flagellar (H) antigens are mostly encoded by genes at the fliC locus in E. coli. We have sequenced 11 H7 fliC genes from Escherichia coli strains that belong to seven O serotypes. These sequences, together with those of nine other H7 fliC genes (from strains of three different O serotypes) sequenced recently (S. D. Reid, R. K. Selander, and T. S. Whittam, J. Bacteriol. 181:153-160, 1999), inclu...

An expression system for studying epitopes of adhesion proteins based on fusion of gene fragments into fliC(H7) of Escherichia coli is described. We constructed the system by an in-frame insertion of DNA fragments encoding one, two or three of the fibronectin-binding D repeats present in the fibronectin-binding protein A (FnBPA) of Staphylococcus aureus, into the fliC(H7) gene region encoding t...

The plasmid DNA encoding the fliC gene of Burkholderia pseudomallei combined with CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) was injected intramuscularly into BALB/c mice, resulting in the increased production of certain humoral antibodies and flagellin-specific spleen cell clonal expansion. CpG ODN, as an immunoadjuvant, was added to the plasmid containing the fliC gene in order to obtain ongoing expressi...

The initial binding of bacterial cells to a solid surface is a critical and essential step in biofilm formation. In this report we show that stationary-phase cultures of Escherichia coli W3100 (a K-12 strain) can efficiently attach to sand columns when they are grown in Luria broth medium at 28 degrees C in fully aerobic conditions. In contrast, growth in oxygen-limited conditions results in a ...

Flagellin, the main component of flagellar filaments, is a protein possessing polymerization ability. In this work, a novel fusion construct of xylanase A from B. subtilis and Salmonella flagellin was created which is applicable to build xylan-degrading catalytic nanorods of high stability. The FliC-XynA chimera when overexpressed in a flagellin deficient Salmonella host strain was secreted int...

To explore the relative contribution that flagella and Salmonella invasion proteins make to the virulence of Salmonella enteritidis in poultry, 20-day-old chicks were challenged orally and by subcutaneous injection with wild-type strain SE-HCD, two non-flagellated mutants (fliC::Tn10 mutant and flhD::Tn10 mutant) and two Salmonella invasion protein insertion mutants (sipD and iacP). When inject...

Ralstonia solanacearum is a pathogenic bacterium that causes wilt in over 200 plant species. Here we report a rapid and sensitive detection of R. solanacearum using an isothermal method for copying DNA known as loop-mediated amplification (LAMP). A set of four primers was designed to replicate the gene coding for the flagellar subunit, fliC, and conditions for detection were optimized to comple...

During flagellar morphogenesis in Salmonella typhimurium, the flagellum-specific anti-sigma factor FlgM is exported out of the cells only after completion of hook assembly. In this study, we examined the export of the flagellar proteins, FlgD (hook capping protein), FlgE (hook protein), FlgK and FlgL (hook-filament junction proteins), FliD (filament capping protein), and FliC (flagellin), befor...