Barrier Crossing in Escherichia coli Chemotaxis

We study cell navigation in spatiotemporally complex environments by developing a microfluidic racetrack device that creates a traveling wave with multiple peaks and a tunable wave speed. We find that while the population-averaged chemotaxis drift speed increases with wave speed for low wave speed,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2017-03, Vol.118 (9), p.098101-098101, Article 098101
Main Authors: Li, Zhaojun, Cai, Qiuxian, Zhang, Xuanqi, Si, Guangwei, Ouyang, Qi, Luo, Chunxiong, Tu, Yuhai
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bacteria
Barriers
Cells (biology)
Chemotaxis
Computer Simulation
Drift
Escherichia coli
Hops
Microfluidics
Models, Biological
Navigation
Rate theory
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Summary:We study cell navigation in spatiotemporally complex environments by developing a microfluidic racetrack device that creates a traveling wave with multiple peaks and a tunable wave speed. We find that while the population-averaged chemotaxis drift speed increases with wave speed for low wave speed, it decreases sharply for high wave speed. This reversed dependence of population-averaged chemotaxis drift speed on wave speed is caused by a "barrier-crossing" phenomenon, where a cell hops backwards from one peak attractant location to the peak behind by crossing an unfavorable (barrier) region with low attractant concentrations. By using a coarse-grained model of chemotaxis, we map bacterial motility in an attractant field to the random motion of an overdamped particle in an effective potential. The observed barrier-crossing phenomenon of living cells and its dependence on the spatiotemporal profile of attractant concentration are explained quantitatively by Kramers reaction rate theory.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.098101