Fig. 5.

Model of Flavobacterium gliding motility. (A) A nontranslocating cell. Adhesin SprB moves along the left-handed helical loop with a speed of υ₀. (B) A translocating cell on glass. SprB has two different states: SprB moving toward the front of the cell and SprB moving toward the rear of the cell. In a translocating cell, SprB moving toward the rear of the cell adheres to the surface, generating left-handed rotation and right-directed translocation of the cell. SprB moving toward the front of the cell apparently runs twice as fast with respect to the glass surface than SprB on a nontranslocating cell.