Article
Bacteria use type-IV pili to slingshot on surfaces.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - 2 Aug 2011
Jin Fan, Conrad Jacinta C, Gibiansky Maxsim L, Wong Gerard C L
Abstract excerpt
Bacteria optimize the use of their motility appendages to move efficiently on a wide range of surfaces prior to forming multicellular bacterial biofilms. The "twitching" motility mode employed by many bacterial species for surface exploration uses type-IV pili (TFP) as linear actuators to enable directional crawling. In addition to linear motion, however, motility requires turns and changes of direction....
Read the complete abstract on PubMedTopics
Share this publication in a Topic to start or enrich a Post.