The strategy of a novel way to enhance bacterial motility

To date, only a few studies identified hyper-motile isolates that affect FlhDC at the post-translational level. Here we obtained this kind of hyper-motile isolates by evolving an E. coli K12 NCM3722 wild-type strain (CY598) on the soft agar plate. These isolates shared one single point mutation in ClpX, making ClpX another hot locus during evolution of bacterial motility. We then revealed the molecular mechanism of the ClpX mutant.