Sex pilus & flagellum - (Feb/23/2005 )

I wanna depolymerize a small zone of the cell wall of one E.coli cell, then insert one tip of a flagellum of another same kind of E.coli cell through this zone into it to try to establish physical contact between two cells, and to find out answers to questions below:


1> Whether the growth of Flagellar Filaments contitue or not?
2> If the growth contitue, whether some molecules are able to be transfered through this contact or not?
3> If the transfer works, what is the difference between it and sex pilus?

Did anyone do some experiments with this before or know something about the questions above?

So far, is the experimental method ready for establishing this kind of physical contact between two cells, or it's just whimsical.

Could someone please help find me a protocol to depolymerizing the zone i want? and any suggestions to this kind of experiment?

Thanks a million!

AFAIK what you want to do is not possible with the methods we have available at the moment.

mechanical micromanipulation is possible for whole (eukayotic) cells and compartments like the nucleus, ok, but for single bacterial cells, and there a single flagellum....not possible to my knowledge. as specific depolymerisation of a tiny area in the bacterial membrane(s). as it's hardly possible to monitor the growth of a single pilus, or to detect and identify some two to twohundred molecules transfererred by a single pilus....

So, I think, maybe if you're willing to wait if science advances and methods getting more and more refined, you maybe lucky sometimes, but not at the moment!

But then - maybe I'm wrong and this is referring to a nowadays standard-method, that I've never herad about! you never know!

mike