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Cover The structure of the extracted bacterial flagellar motor was
described in a seminal paper by Dennis Thomas, David Morgan, and David
DeRosier (1999, "Rotational Symmetry of the C-ring and a Mechanism
for the Flagellar Rotary Motor." Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
96, 10134-10139). The left panel is an image of the
flagellar basal body obtained by averaging electron micrographs of many
individual flagellar basal structures. At the bottom is the cytoplasmic
C ring, which extends from the M ring, the portion of the structure
that resides within the cytoplasmic membrane (IM). Above them are the P
and L rings, which are located in the periplasm and outer membrane
(OM), respectively. The L and P rings are threaded on an axel-like rod,
which traverses the surface layers of Gram-negative bacteria. The right
panel is a contour plot of the density of the averaged image. Three of
the five proteins essential for the torque generation are located in
the C and M rings, and a mechanism for torque generation was proposed
that is based on the symmetry mismatch between these two rings.
Professor Lucy Shapiro.