Additionally, the authors sequenced the genome of this organism and identified homologs to genes conserved among filamentous cyanobacteria that have been demonstrated to be essential for motility in Nostoc punctiforme and may encode for the junctional pore proteins (hps locus) or a chemotaxis system (hmp locus).
The authors observe that the velocity of movement was maximal immediately after a reversal and then declined exponentially until the next reversal. The authors then suggest that this observation is theoretically inconsistent with type IV pili or focal adhesion complexes as the driving force for movement. Are there any available published reports quantifying the motility of organisms using these systems that would corroborate this empirically? In short, has it been demonstrated that bacteria moving by twitching motility or focal adhesion do not show a similar pattern for velocity of movement?