Figure 1.

The morphology and architecture of B. burgdorferi, which has a planar, flat-wave morphology. (a, e) When viewed from one perspective, the cell body appears wave-like; (b, f) When rotated by 90°, the cell shape appears straight. (e, f) Schematic of the cell construction of B. burgdorferi. The cell cylinder is shown in green and the perplasmic flagellar bundle in purple. The outer membrane sheath is not shown. The flagella wrap around the cell body, inducing a flat-wave shape, with a wavelength of λ and amplitude h. The shapes shown here were produced by the mathematical model with parameters a = 0.2 μm and A = 5. (c) Mutants lacking FlaB do not produce flagella, and the cells are rod-shaped. Scale bar, 5 μm. Figure originally published in (3) and reproduced with permission. (g) Schematic of the cell cylinder. The radius of the cell cylinder is a. (d) Darkfield image of purified flagella from B. burgdorferi. Scale bar, 2 μm. Image courtesy of S. Goldstein. (h) Purified flagella are helical with a pitch, P and diameter 2R. (a, b) Scale bars, 1 μm. Figures originally published in (12).