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Investigating Flagella-Driven Motility in Escherichia coli by Applying Three Established Techniques in a Series
Published on: May 10, 2020
A Non-Poissonian Flagellar Motor Switch Increases Bacterial Chemotactic Potential
Yang Yang1, Jing He1, Tuba Altindal2
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Abstract:
We investigate bacterial chemotactic strategies using run-tumble and run-reverse-flick motility patterns. The former is typically observed in enteric bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella and the latter was recently observed in the marine bacteria Vibrio alginolyticus and is possibly exhibited by other polar flagellated species. It is shown that although the three-step motility pattern helps the bacterium to localize near hot spots, an exploitative behavior, its exploratory potential in short times can be significantly enhanced by employing a non-Poissonian regulation scheme for its flagellar motor switches.
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