PomA and PomB are integral membrane proteins and are essential for the rotation of the Na(+)-driven polar flagellar motor of Vibrio alginolyticus. On the basis of their similarity to MotA and MotB, which are the proton-conducting components of the H(+)-driven motor, they are thought to form the Na(+)-channel complex and to be essential for mechanochemical coupling in the motor. To investigate P...

The bacterial flagellar motor is an intricate nanomachine powered by a transmembrane electrochemical gradient. Rotation is driven by the cumulative action of several peptidoglycan-anchored stator complexes on the rotor. In proton-motive force-driven motors, the stator complex is composed of a motility protein B (MotB) dimer surrounded by four copies of MotA, where both MotA and MotB are integra...

Development of bacteriophage T4 in Escherichia coli requires the sequential recognition of three classes of promoters: early, middle, and late. Recognition of middle promoters is known to require the motA gene product, a protein that binds specifically to the "Mot box" located at the -30 region of these promoters. In vivo, the asiA gene product is as critical for middle mode RNA synthesis as is...

ike a picky tourist looking for a hotel room, the malariacausing protozoan Plasmodium passes through several cells before settling on one to infect. Margarida Carrolo, Maria Mota (Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Oeiras, Portugal), and colleagues now report that the initial invasions cause the damaged cells to make a factor that primes other cells for infection. The factor turned up in culture ...

Aquifex aeolicus is a hyperthermophilic, hydrogen-oxidizing and carbon-fixing bacterium that can grow at temperatures up to 95 °C. A. aeolicus has an almost complete set of flagellar genes that are conserved in bacteria. Here we observed that A. aeolicus has polar flagellum and can swim with a speed of 90 μm s(-1) at 85 °C. We expressed the A. aeolicus mot genes (motA and motB), which encode th...