Bacterial Flagellar Motor is one of nature’s rare rotary molecular machines. It enables bacterial swimming and it is the key part of the bacterial chemotactic network, one of the best studied chemical signalling networks in biology, which enables bacteria to direct its movement in accordance with the chemical environment. The network can sense down to nanomolar concentrations of specific chemicals on the time scale of seconds. Motor’s rotational speed is linearly proportional to the electrochemical gradients of either proton or sodium driving ions, while its direction is regulated by the chemotactic network. Recently, it has been discovered that motor is also a mechanosensor. Given these properties, we discuss the motor’s potential to serve as a multifunctional biosensor and a tool for characterising and studying the external environment, the bacterial physiology itself and single molecular motor biophysics.

细菌鞭毛马达是自然界中罕见的旋转分子机器之一。它使细菌能够游动，它是细菌趋化网络的关键部分，这是生物学中研究得最好的化学信号网络之一，它使细菌能够根据化学环境指导其运动。该网络可以在数秒的时间范围内感应到特定化学物质的纳摩尔浓度。电机的转速与质子或钠驱动离子的电化学梯度成线性比例，而其方向受趋化网络调节。最近，人们发现电机也是一种机械传感器。鉴于这些特性，我们讨论了电机作为多功能生物传感器和表征和研究外部环境的工具的潜力，