The bacterial flagellum rotates to propel bacteria through their environment. This movement relies on a structure called the stator, which generates the torque needed to spin the flagellum. A similar motor structure is found in other bacterial systems, like the Ton transport system, which helps bacteria acquire nutrients.
The HFSP grantees, led by Matthew Baker, University of New South Wales, Australia, recently published our efforts to create hybrid versions of these bacterial engines in the Journal of Bacteriology. The researchers ultimately tested fourteen designs but only got one that could successfully drive bacterial swimming. In some ways, this shows how distant the molecular ancestors of these engines must be. It also taught the scientists more about which parts of these systems are essential. Then, they used experimental and directed evolution to push the bacteria to improve their swimming and fix up these hybrid motors. In their work, the group of HFSP-awarded researchers seeks to combine different proteins to see what type of new bionanotechnology is possible and better understand how interchangeable the componentry behind bacterial swimming is.
HFSP funding has been crucial for this work as it has connected the researchers internationally to groups with leading expertise in a mixture of disciplines to help develop new methods at the interface of synthetic and evolutionary biology: "We have been working with our wider HFSP team on new structural methods [ref1] and improved characterization of other stator homologues [ref2] to get closer to understanding what the first stators looked like." said the principal investigator, Matthew Baker.