The relation of signal transduction to the sensitivity and dynamic range of bacterial chemotaxis

Complex networks of interacting molecular components of living cells are responsible for many important processes, such as signal processing and transduction. An important challenge is to understand how the individual properties of these molecular interactions and biochemical transformations determine the system-level properties of biological functions. Here, we address the issue of the accuracy of signal transduction performed by a bacterial chemotaxis system. The chemotaxis sensitivity of bacteria to a chemoattractant gradient has been measured experimentally from bacterial aggregation in a chemoattractant-containing capillary. The observed precision of the chemotaxis depended on environmental conditions such as the concentration and molecular makeup of the chemoattractant. In a quantitative model, we derived the chemotactic response function, which is essential to describing the signal transduction process involved in bacterial chemotaxis. In the presence of a gradient, an analytical solution is derived that reveals connections between the chemotaxis sensitivity and the characteristics of the signaling system, such as reaction rates. These biochemical parameters are integrated into two system-level parameters: one characterizes the efficiency of gradient sensing, and the other is related to the dynamic range of chemotaxis. Thus, our approach explains how a particular signal transduction property affects the system-level performance of bacterial chemotaxis. We further show that the two parameters can be derived from published experimental data from a capillary assay, which successfully characterizes the performance of bacterial chemotaxis.