Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A flagellum (/ f l ə ˈ dʒ ɛ l əm /; pl.: flagella) (Latin for 'whip' or 'scourge') is a hair-like appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal sperm cells, from fungal spores (), and from a wide range of microorganisms to provide motility.
Among protoctists and microscopic animals, a flagellate is an organism with one or more flagella. Some cells in other animals may be flagellate, for instance the spermatozoa of most animal phyla. Flowering plants do not produce flagellate cells, but ferns, mosses, green algae, and some gymnosperms and closely related plants do so. [2]
English: A Gram-negative bacterial flagellum. A flagellum (plural: flagella) is a long, slender projection from the cell body, whose function is to propel a unicellular or small multicellular organism. The depicted type of flagellum is found in bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella, and rotates like a propeller when the bacterium swims.
Flagellins are a family of proteins present in flagellated bacteria [1] which arrange themselves in a hollow cylinder to form the filament in a bacterial flagellum. Flagellin has a mass on average of about 40,000 daltons. [2] [3] Flagellins are the principal component of bacterial flagella that have a crucial role in bacterial motility.
The rotary motor model used by bacteria uses the protons of an electrochemical gradient in order to move their flagella. Torque in the flagella of bacteria is created by particles that conduct protons around the base of the flagellum. The direction of rotation of the flagella in bacteria comes from the occupancy of the proton channels along the ...
Longitudinal section through the flagella area in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. In the cell apex is the basal body that is the anchoring site for a flagellum. Basal bodies originate from and have a substructure similar to that of centrioles, with nine peripheral microtubule triplets (see structure at bottom center of image).
The choanoflagellates feed on bacteria and link otherwise inaccessible forms of carbon to organisms higher in the trophic chain. [26] Even today, they are important in the carbon cycle and microbial food web. [13] There is some evidence that choanoflagellates feast on viruses as well. [27]
The flagella lie in surface grooves: the transverse one in the cingulum and the longitudinal one in the sulcus, although its distal portion projects freely behind the cell. In dinoflagellate species with desmokont flagellation (e.g., Prorocentrum), the two flagella are differentiated as in dinokonts, but they are not associated with grooves.