Mechanism of bacterial chemotaxis

Bacterial chemotaxis

Chemotaxis is the directed motion of an organism toward environmental conditions it deems attractive and/or away from surroundings it finds repellent. Movement of flagellated bacteria such as Escherichia coli can be characterized as a sequence of smooth-swimming runs punctuated by intermittent tumbles. Tumbles last only a fraction of a second, which is sufficient to effectively randomize the di...

Microfluidics for bacterial chemotaxis

Response rescaling in bacterial chemotaxis.

Sensory systems rescale their response sensitivity upon adaptation according to simple strategies that recur in processes as diverse as single-cell signaling, neural network responses, and whole-organism perception. Here, we study response rescaling in Escherichia coli chemotaxis, where adaptation dynamically tunes the cells' motile response during searches for nutrients. Using in vivo fluoresc...

Spatial organization in bacterial chemotaxis.

Spatial organization of signalling is not an exclusive property of eukaryotic cells. Despite the fact that bacterial signalling pathways are generally simpler than those in eukaryotes, there are several well-documented examples of higher-order intracellular signalling structures in bacteria. One of the most prominent and best-characterized structures is formed by proteins that control bacterial...

Chamber for bacterial chemotaxis experiments.

A design for a chemotaxis chamber and its use in bacterial chemotaxis experiments are described. Some of the advantages of the new design are discussed.