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Journal of Bacteriology, October 2006, p. 6995-7004, Vol. 188, No. 19
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00790-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

FlhF Is Required for Swimming and Swarming in Pseudomonas aeruginosa{dagger}

Thomas S. Murray1,3 and Barbara I. Kazmierczak2,3*

Department of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases),1 Department of Medicine (Infectious Diseases),2 Section of Microbial Pathogenesis, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut3

Received 1 June 2006/ Accepted 19 July 2006

FlhF is a signal recognition particle-like protein present in monotrichous bacteria. The loss of FlhF in various bacteria results in decreased transcription of class II, III, or IV flagellar genes, leads to diminished or absent motility, and results in the assembly of flagella at nonpolar locations on the cell surface. In this work, we demonstrate that the loss of FlhF results in defective swimming and swarming motility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The FlhF protein localizes to the flagellar pole; in the absence of FlhF, flagellar assembly occurs but is no longer restricted to the pole. {Delta}flhF bacteria swim at lower velocities than wild-type bacteria in liquid media and can no longer swarm when assayed under standard swarming conditions (0.5% agar). However, {Delta}flhF bacteria regain swarming behavior when plated on 0.3% agar. {Delta}flhF organisms show decreased transcription and expression of flagellin (FliC) both in liquid media and on swarming plates compared to wild-type bacteria. However, changes in flagellin expression do not explain the different motility patterns observed for {Delta}flhF bacteria. Instead, the aberrant placement of flagella in {Delta}flhF bacteria may reduce their ability to move this rod-shaped organism effectively.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: 333 Cedar St., Box 208022, New Haven, CT 06520-8022. Phone: (203) 737-5062. Fax: (203) 785-3864. E-mail: Barbara.Kazmierczak{at}yale.edu.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, October 2006, p. 6995-7004, Vol. 188, No. 19
0021-9193/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.00790-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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