School of Physics, Engineering and Technology
Archaeal motility
The archaea were recognised as a separate biological domain in the 1970s by Carl Woese. They share some physiological characteristics with the other domains – the eukaryotes (which include animals, plants and fungi) and the bacteria – alongside features that are uniquely archaeal. Many archaeal species thrive in harsh environments, leading them to be dubbed ‘extremophiles’. Fascinatingly, the swimming apparatus of some salt-loving archaea works by the same physical principles as the bacterial flagellar motor, but has evolved from a different starting point. Archaeal and bacterial flagellar (archaeallar) motors are both rotary motors embedded in the cell membrane that rotate a rigid helical propeller, but they consume different energy sources, are composed of different proteins, and originated from different precursor structures. We are comparing the physics of archaeal and bacterial swimming to find out how cells navigate in the micro-world.