Modulation of flagellar rotation in surface-attached bacteria: A pathway for rapid surface-sensing after flagellar attachment
Fig 6
Exogenous cAMP reverses the persistent rotation phenotype of surface-tethered flhF, fimV and vfr mutants.
Bacteria were incubated with anti-FliC coated slides for 5 min in the presence or absence of 20 mM cAMP. Rotating bacteria were identified (t = 0) and observed for 45 min. The proportion of rotating (red), attached (black), and detached cells (white) was determined in 3–8 independent experiments. Survival curves were analyzed with the Mantel-Cox test to determine whether exogenous cAMP had a significant effect on persistence of rotation. This was the case for ΔflhF, fimV(L7P), NG01(vfr(G73D)) and ΔflhF pilA (p < 0.0001), but not for the parental strain PAK (p = 0.64).