Abstract
Physical constraints limit the way in which an organism as small as Escherichia coli can interact with its surroundings. Cells are propelled by the movement of thin helical flagella, because motion is dominated by viscous rather than inertial forces. Cells are unable to swim in straight lines because of perturbations due to rotational Brownian movement. Cells are unable to improve their lot locally by swimming or stirring, because transport of small molecules is effected by diffusion rather than bulk flow. Cells must sense gradients temporally rather than spatially, because comparison between concentrations in front and behind are overwhelmed by diffusive currents due to the cells’ motion. Finally, the precision with which cells can make temporal comparisons are limited by statistical fluctuations. A survey of these constraints is given, followed by a description of how E. coli has optimized its chemotaxis machinery to meet them. This optimization is revealed by measurements of the chemotactic impulse response.
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© 1985 Plenum Press, New York
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Berg, H.C. (1985). Physics of Bacterial Chemotaxis. In: Colombetti, G., Lenci, F., Song, PS. (eds) Sensory Perception and Transduction in Aneural Organisms. NATO ASI Series, vol 89. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2497-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2497-3_2
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