E. coli is well equipped for living in rapidly changing conditions of its natural ecosystem: it has flagella that enable it to move and navigate in nutrient-poor environments, and when oxygen is limited, it has the ability of switching to anaerobic respiration, using fumarate reduction for making energy. Recently it was discovered that there is a crosstalk between the fumarate reduction system (FRD) and flagellar motility: during fumarate respiration the flagellar motor operates in different, ultra-sensitive mode. Super-resolution microscopy reveals that the two systems communicate via physical interaction between their protein components and sheds light on the molecular mechanism by which FRD controls the output of the flagellar motor. Moreover, super-resolution microscopy enabled quantitative analysis of FRD proteins in relation to the precise location of the flagellar motors.
