BENEATH THE SURFACE

The bacterial flagellar motor

Molecular machinery, in motion.

THE BACTERIAL CELLCUTAWAY

Life in motion

Explore the molecular machinery hidden beneath the surface.

01 TIME & MOTION

00:00

Playback speed1.0×

CONTEMPLATIVEENERGETIC

Chemotaxis switching (run / tumble)

02 EXPLORE THE LAYERS

Section depth65%

DEEP SECTIONFULL DEPTH

Flagellar motorCell envelopeMolecular crowdingParticle pathways

03 APPEARANCE

Render quality

Depth shadingScene annotations

04 SOUND & SUSPENSION

Floating white specksSoundscapeVolume25%

Muted textures become closer and clearer as you zoom in.

Sound is off

05 FIELD GUIDE

Every labeled structure: what it does, how this model simplifies it, and the papers behind it. Pick one to fly there.

06 BY THE NUMBERS

The flagellar motor

A rotary machine spanning the cell envelope. The rotor turns the shaft and external filament while its supports stay anchored.

ILLUSTRATIVE MODEL · MOTION SLOWED

About this model

A visual interpretation of a bacterial cutaway. Molecular shapes use transformed surface atoms from representative PDB structures; these are shape references, not an inventory of bacterial proteins. Motor geometry, scale, pathways, and speed are schematic. Each labeled structure in the Field guide lists its own sources.

Shape data: RCSB PDB 1LYZ, 1UBQ, 1ATP, 1GZX.

Assembling a small world…

The bacterial flagellar motor

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