The single flagellum of Trypanosoma brucei has been unveiled as a key player in determining cell polarity, division, size and shape. The flagellum, an appendage whose structure is conserved from ...

A tiny but powerful engine that propels the bacterium Bacillus subtilis through liquids is disengaged from the corkscrew-like flagellum by a protein clutch, scientists have learned. Scientists have ...

Scientists have studied a new target for antibiotics in the greatest detail yet – in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The ‘molecular machine’ flagellum is essential for bacteria to cause ...

The African trypanosome Trypanosoma brucei is a unicellular pathogen that causes lethal sleeping sickness in humans, which is a devastating and neglected tropical disease that is endemic to vast ...

Actually, flagella vary widely from one species to another, and some of the components can perform useful functions by themselves. They are anything but irreducibly complex It is a highly complex ...

When headed the wrong way, some bacteria turn by letting their propellers flop. The newly discovered turning mechanism explains how a marine bacterium can control its direction using only a single ...

Many bacteria are equipped with a flagellum, a helical propeller that allows bacteria to travel. The flagellum is assembled in a highly organized manner involving the stepwise addition of each of its ...

THREE years before his death in 1805, English philosopher William Paley proposed a now-famous thought experiment. Imagine discovering a watch on the heath: how would you explain its intricate ...

Many species of swimming bacteria have a rotary structure called a "flagellum," consisting of more than twenty different kinds of proteins. By rotating their flagellar filaments and gaining propulsion ...