Furuno M, Nishioka N, Kawagishi I, Homma M
Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan.
Microbiol Immunol. 1999;43(1):39-43. doi: 10.1111/j.1348-0421.1999.tb02370.x.
The axial length of the polar flagellum (Pof) of Vibrio alginolyticus is about 5 microm. We previously isolated mutants that make abnormally long flagella. The swarm sizes of these mutants in a soft agar plate are smaller than that of a wild-type strain. We cloned a DNA fragment into the pMF209 plasmid that restored the swarming ability of the long-Pof strain V10578. The swimming speed and flagellar length of these transformants were almost equal to the wild-type values. The amounts of PF47 flagellin and PF60 sheath-associated protein, which increased in the long-Pof mutants, were retrieved to almost the wild-type level in the transformants. The plasmid pMF209 contained only a 143 bp chromosomal fragment whose sequence is about 80% similar to that of the motX promoter region of V parahaemolyticus. We speculate that this sequence interacts with a regulatory protein that controls Pof expression. The mutation causing the long-Pof phenotype may be in the gene encoding this protein or in the control region of a structural gene that is regulated by this protein.
溶藻弧菌极鞭毛（Pof）的轴向长度约为5微米。我们之前分离出了产生异常长鞭毛的突变体。这些突变体在软琼脂平板上的群体游动大小比野生型菌株小。我们将一个DNA片段克隆到pMF209质粒中，该片段恢复了长极鞭毛菌株V10578的群体游动能力。这些转化体的游动速度和鞭毛长度几乎与野生型值相等。在长极鞭毛突变体中增加的PF47鞭毛蛋白和PF60鞘相关蛋白的量在转化体中恢复到几乎野生型水平。质粒pMF209仅包含一个143 bp的染色体片段，其序列与副溶血性弧菌motX启动子区域的序列约80%相似。我们推测该序列与控制极鞭毛表达的调节蛋白相互作用。导致长极鞭毛表型的突变可能存在于编码该蛋白的基因中，或存在于受该蛋白调控的结构基因的控制区域中。
