%0 Journal Article
%T Perturbed N-glycosylation of Halobacterium salinarum archaellum filaments leads to filament bundling and compromised cell motility.
%A Sofer S
%A Vershinin Z
%A Mashni L
%A Zalk R
%A Shahar A
%A Eichler J
%A Grossman-Haham I
%J Nat Commun
%V 15
%N 1
%D 2024 Jul 11
%M 38992036
%F 17.694
%R 10.1038/s41467-024-50277-1
%X The swimming device of archaea-the archaellum-presents asparagine (N)-linked glycans. While N-glycosylation serves numerous roles in archaea, including enabling their survival in extreme environments, how this post-translational modification contributes to cell motility remains under-explored. Here, we report the cryo-EM structure of archaellum filaments from the haloarchaeon Halobacterium salinarum, where archaellins, the building blocks of the archaellum, are N-glycosylated, and the N-glycosylation pathway is well-resolved. We further determined structures of archaellum filaments from two N-glycosylation mutant strains that generate truncated glycans and analyzed their motility. While cells from the parent strain exhibited unidirectional motility, the N-glycosylation mutant strain cells swam in ever-changing directions within a limited area. Although these mutant strain cells presented archaellum filaments that were highly similar in architecture to those of the parent strain, N-linked glycan truncation greatly affected interactions between archaellum filaments, leading to dramatic clustering of both isolated and cell-attached filaments. We propose that the N-linked tetrasaccharides decorating archaellins act as physical spacers that minimize the archaellum filament aggregation that limits cell motility.