Journal
JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY
Volume 178, Issue 2, Pages 189-198Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1016/j.jsb.2012.01.009
Keywords
Flagellum; Trypanosoma brucei; Kinetoplastid; Paraflagellar rod; Cryo-electron tomography; Frozen hydrated sections
Funding
- EMBO
- NIH-NCRR [P41-RR000592]
- NIH-NIGMS [5R01GM80993]
- Wellcome Trust
- BBSRC
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Trypanosoma brucei is a uni-cellular protist that causes African sleeping sickness. These parasites have a flagellum that is attached to the cell body and is indispensible for its motility. The flagellum consists of a canonical 9 + 2 axoneme and a paraflagellar rod (PFR), an intricate tripartite, fibrous structure that is connected to the axoneme. In this paper we describe results from cryo-electron tomography of unperturbed flagella. This method revealed novel structures that are likely involved in attaching the flagellum to the cell. We also show the first cryo-electron tomographic images of a basal body in situ, revealing electron dense structures inside its triplet microtubules. Sub-tomogram averaging of the PFR revealed that its distal region is organized as an orthorhombic crystal. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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