Variation in swimming speed of Escherichia coli in response to attractant

It is well known that Escherichia coli executes chemotactic motion in response to chemical cues by modulating the flagellar motor bias alone. However, previous studies have reported the possibility of variation in run speed in the presence of attractants although it is unclear whether bacteria can deliberately modulate their swimming speeds in response to environmental cues or if the motor speeds are hardwired. By studying the detailed motion of cells in a uniform concentration of glucose and its non-metabolizable analogue, we show that changing concentrations may be accompanied by variation in the swimming speed. For a fixed run duration, cells exposed to the attractants achieved a higher peak-swimming speed after a tumble compared with that in plain motility buffer. Our experiments using the mutant strain lacking the Trg sensor show no change in swimming speed with varying concentrations of the non-metabolizable analogue, suggesting that sensing may play a role in the observed variation of swimming speed.