AUTHOR=Nuno de Sousa Machado João , Albers Sonja-Verena , Daum Bertram 

TITLE=Towards Elucidating the Rotary Mechanism of the Archaellum Machinery

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Microbiology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.848597

DOI=10.3389/fmicb.2022.848597

ISSN=1664-302X

ABSTRACT=Motile archaea are able to swim by means of a molecular machine called archaellum. This structure consists of a filament attached to a membrane-embedded motor. The archaellum is found exclusively in members of the archaeal domain, but the core of its motor shares homologues with the motor of type IV pili (T4P). Here we provide an overview of the different components of the archaellum machinery and provide hypothetical models to explain how rotary motion of the filament is powered by the archaellum motor.