{"id":31172,"date":"2026-01-26T07:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/?p=31172"},"modified":"2026-01-26T07:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T07:43:00","slug":"bacteria-use-a-corkscrew-trick-to-squeeze-through-tiny-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/bacteria-use-a-corkscrew-trick-to-squeeze-through-tiny-spaces","title":{"rendered":"Bacteria Use a &#8216;Corkscrew&#8217; Trick to Squeeze Through Tiny Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Points<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Scientists have discovered how some bacteria can move through spaces barely larger than themselves.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They wrap their flagella around their bodies to create a &#8220;corkscrew&#8221; motion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This allows them to &#8220;drill&#8221; their way through tight passages.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A tiny, flexible joint in the flagellum called the &#8220;hook&#8221; is the key to this ability.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Scientists in Japan have discovered a clever trick that bacteria use to navigate through spaces that are barely larger than themselves. By wrapping their long, tail-like flagella around their bodies, the bacteria can transform into a kind of &#8220;corkscrew&#8221; and drill through tight passages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The research team, led by a group at the University of Electro-Communications, built a special microfluidic device that mimicked the narrow channels of an insect&#8217;s gut. They then watched as a type of symbiotic bacteria called <em>Caballeronia insecticola<\/em> made its way through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Under the microscope, they saw the bacteria repeatedly wrap and unwrap their flagella, creating a screw-like motion that propelled them forward. Other, related bacteria that couldn&#8217;t perform this &#8220;flagellar wrapping&#8221; got stuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Computer simulations confirmed what they were seeing. In a confined space, a normally rotating flagellum just stirs the fluid around, but a wrapped flagellum can push against the channel walls, creating much more efficient forward motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The team also pinpointed the specific part of the flagellum that enables this trick: a tiny, flexible joint called the &#8220;hook.&#8221; When they swapped the hook genes from a &#8220;wrapping&#8221; species to a &#8220;non-wrapping&#8221; one, the bacteria lost their ability to squeeze through the tight spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This discovery is not just a cool piece of biology; it could also have real-world applications. Understanding these micro-scale drilling motions could inspire the design of tiny robots that can navigate challenging environments, such as human tissue or filtration systems. &#8220;Flagellar wrapping shows how life solves mechanical problems in elegant, unexpected ways,&#8221; said one of the lead researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Source:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-67507-9\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-025-67507-9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nature Communications<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Points Scientists in Japan have discovered a clever trick that bacteria use to navigate through spaces that are barely larger than themselves. By wrapping&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}