Title | Mechanism of bidirectional thermotaxis in . |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2017 |
Authors | Paulick, A, Jakovljevic, V, Zhang, SM, Erickstad, M, Groisman, A, Meir, Y, Ryu, WS, Wingreen, NS, Sourjik, V |
Journal | Elife |
Volume | 6 |
Date Published | 2017 Aug 03 |
ISSN | 2050-084X |
Keywords | Adaptation, Physiological, Aspartic Acid, Bacterial Proteins, Chemotactic Factors, Escherichia coli K12, Escherichia coli Proteins, Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer, Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial, Green Fluorescent Proteins, Luminescent Proteins, Methyl-Accepting Chemotaxis Proteins, Microfluidic Analytical Techniques, Receptors, Cell Surface, Recombinant Fusion Proteins, Serine, Signal Transduction, Taxis Response, Temperature |
Abstract | <p>In bacteria various tactic responses are mediated by the same cellular pathway, but sensing of physical stimuli remains poorly understood. Here, we combine an in-vivo analysis of the pathway activity with a microfluidic taxis assay and mathematical modeling to investigate the thermotactic response of . We show that in the absence of chemical attractants exhibits a steady thermophilic response, the magnitude of which decreases at higher temperatures. Adaptation of wild-type cells to high levels of chemoattractants sensed by only one of the major chemoreceptors leads to inversion of the thermotactic response at intermediate temperatures and bidirectional cell accumulation in a thermal gradient. A mathematical model can explain this behavior based on the saturation-dependent kinetics of adaptive receptor methylation. Lastly, we find that the preferred accumulation temperature corresponds to optimal growth in the presence of the chemoattractant serine, pointing to a physiological relevance of the observed thermotactic behavior.</p> |
DOI | 10.7554/eLife.26607 |
Alternate Journal | Elife |
PubMed ID | 28826491 |
PubMed Central ID | PMC5578741 |
Grant List | R01 GM082938 / GM / NIGMS NIH HHS / United States |