Word: flagella
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...fatter mice in Gewirtz's study had been bred to lack a protein known as toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5), which most intestinal cells sprout on their surface. Its job is to recognize and bind to the whiplike flagella that bacteria use to move around. TLR5 acts as a traffic cop for controlling the mass of pathogens living in the intestine; without it, the normally harmless gut bacteria tend to overflourish and expand in number. (See and listen to an audio slideshow about obesity rehab...
When sperm are swimming far away from eggs, their flagella beat steadily with sinusoidal motions. However, for fertilization to occur, the sperm need to be hyper-activated. Hyper-activated sperm swim with vigorous, whip-like motions that gives them the force they need to penetrate the protective membrane of the eggs. Prior to Kirichock and Navarro’s research, which was published in the February 9 issue of the scientific journal Nature, the cause of this hyper-activation was unknown...
...discovered by Clapham’s lab in 2001, the CatSper protein is activated by the higher pH environment of the female cervix. Activated CatSper allow calcium ions to flow into the sperm’s tail. The calcium influx, measurable as an electrical current, alters the way the flagella bends and hyper-activates the tail’s motor proteins. In experiments, mice altered to lack the CatSper protein had weak swimming sperm and were infertile...
...trying to develop an in vitro way to study the motor mechanism of the flagella,” Smith Professor of Physics and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Howard C. Berg said...
...submarines"--drug-bearing capsules that someday could be propelled through the bloodstream by bacteria to attack disease. Looking even further ahead for alternative means of driving these tiny craft, he is considering building biomotors 100 billionths of a meter wide that would use only the bacteria's hairlike, propelling flagella to move ahead...