Making Liquid Crystalline Sol of Bacterial Flagellar Filaments

Abstract

We are studying the structure of straight type flagellar filament using X-ray fiber diffraction method. Highly oriented flagellar filament sol is required to achieve high resolution analysis. Making sols in liquid crystalline phase fulfill this purpose. We searched for appropriate conditions under which flagellar filament sols form a liquid crystalline state and obtained the following conclusions: 1. Average flagellar filament length must be around 300nm; 2. pH close to pI is more preferable for highly ordered liquid crystal; 3. Presence of more than 10mM salt is necessary.