Journal article
A shared mechanism for Bacteroidota protein transport and gliding motility
- Abstract:
- Bacteria of the phylum Bacteroidota are major human commensals and pathogens in addition to being abundant members of the wider biosphere. Bacteroidota move by gliding and they export proteins using the Type 9 Secretion System (T9SS). Here we discover that gliding motility and the T9SS share an unprecedented mechanism of energisation in which outer membrane proteins are covalently attached by disulfide bonds to a moving internal track structure that propels them laterally through the membrane. We determined the structure of an exemplar Bacteroidota mobile track by obtaining the cryoEM structure of a 3 MDa circular mini-track from Porphyromonas gingivalis. Our discoveries identify a mechanistic and evolutionary link between gliding motility and T9SS-dependent protein transport.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 4.7MB, Terms of use)
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(Supplementary materials, zip, 124.9MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41467-025-65003-8
Authors
+ European Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Grant:
- 833713
+ Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/00cwqg982
- Grant:
- BB/S007474/1
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature Communications More from this journal
- Volume:
- 16
- Issue:
- 1
- Article number:
- 10217
- Publication date:
- 2025-11-20
- Acceptance date:
- 2025-09-29
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
2041-1723
- Language:
-
English
- Pubs id:
-
2295214
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2295214
- Deposit date:
-
2025-09-29
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Liu et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2025
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2025. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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