Mycoplasma mobile moves into overdrive: Twin motor modified from ATP synthase discovered
For more than 20 years, Makoto Miyata from Osaka City University has been studying the gliding motility of the parasitic bacterium Mycoplasma mobile (M. mobile). It is a mechanism consisting of an external "grabbing" structure and internal "motor"—the motor having yet to be clarified on a molecular level. In collaboration with Osaka University and Kanazawa University, Miyata's research team used electron microscopy and high-speed atomic force microscopy (high-speed AFM) to reveal that the bacteria's molecular motor consists of two ATP synthase-like complexes, suggesting an unexpected evolution of the protein. Their findings were published in mBio.