PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Steven Johnson
AU  - Yu Hang Fong
AU  - Justin Deme
AU  - Emily Furlong
AU  - Lucas Kuhlen
AU  - Susan M. Lea
TI  - Structure of the bacterial flagellar rotor MS-ring: a minimum inventory/maximum diversity system
AID  - 10.1101/718072
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 718072
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/30/718072.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/07/30/718072.full
AB  - The bacterial flagellum is a complex, self-assembling, nanomachine that confers motility on the cell. Despite great variation across species, all flagella are ultimately constructed from a helical propellor attached to a motor embedded in the inner membrane. The motor consists of a series of stator units surrounding a central rotor made up of two ring complexes, the MS-ring and the C-ring. Despite many studies, high resolution structural information is still completely lacking for the MS-ring of the rotor, and proposed mismatches in stoichiometry between the two rings have long provided a source of confusion for the field. We here present structures of the Salmonella MS-ring, revealing an unprecedented level of inter- and intra-chain symmetry variation that provides a structural explanation for the ability of the MS-ring to function as a complex and elegant interface between the two main functions of the flagellum, protein secretion and rotation.