Flagellar movements and controlling apparatus in flagellates

Crawling, sliding, and swimming are only a few of the many motile responses of microorganisms to environmental cues. However, what is commonly defined as movement is just the final, often the only, detectable step of a series of complex intracellular reactions based on sophisticated locomotory machi neries that function according to well-defined locomotory strategies and pa tterns. A simple motion can arise by a shape change of permanently Linked m olecules, and a more complex one by reversible interactions the causing mov ement of filaments relative to each other, or by reversible assembly and di sassembly of elements, etc., all of which have in common the need for energ y input. Proteins can undergo these changes in response to any modification of their environment and be considered the most likely molecules serving m otor functions in real systems. The analysis of microrganism motors and mot or controlling devices such as flagella and their accessory components sugg ests that the movement of these structures can be considered an example of propagation of sensory information along lattice-like structures by means o f repetitive protein conformational changes. These intracellular devices ta ken as a whole could represent the network condensing both the information and motor systems in aneural microorganisms.