David E. Tanner, Wen Ma, Zhongzhou Chen, and Klaus Schulten.
Theoretical and computational investigation of flagellin
translocation and bacterial flagellum growth.
Biophysical Journal, 100:2548-2556, 2011.
(PMC: 3117181)
TANN2011
The bacterial flagellum is a self-assembling filament, which bacteria use for swimming.
It is built from tens of thousands of flagellin monomers in a self-assembly process that
involves translocation of the monomers through the flagellar interior, a channel, to the
growing tip. Flagellum monomers are pumped into the filament at the base, move
unfolded along the channel and then bind to the tip of the filament, thereby extending the
growing flagellum. The flagellin translocation process, due to the flagellum maximum
length of 20 m, is an extreme example of protein transport through channels.
Here, we derive a model for flagellin transport through the long confining channel, testing
the key assumptions of the model through molecular dynamics simulations that also
furnish system parameters needed for quantitative description. Together, mathematical
model and molecular dynamics simulations explain why the growth rate of flagellar
filaments decays exponentially with filament length and why flagellum growth ceases at a
certain maximum length.
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