Bacterial maze runners reveal hidden diversity in chemotactic performance
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Date
2019-08
Publication Type
Review Article
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yes
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Abstract
Chemotaxis allows microorganisms to exploit gradients in chemical stimuli to find nutrient resources and hosts or escape noxious substances. Thus, the life of individual microbes in their natural environments is a continual sequence of decisions based on the perceived chemical gradients. However, it has remained unclear to what extent the chemotaxis properties vary among cells of one species, and whether there is a spectrum of different ‘decision makers’ within populations of bacteria. In our recent study (Salek, Carrara et al., Nature Communications 10 (1), 1877), we combine microfluidic experiments with mathematical modeling to demonstrate that even in clonal populations, bacteria are individuals with different abilities to climb chemical gradients.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
6 (8)
Pages / Article No.
370 - 372
Publisher
Shared Science Publishers
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Subject
bacterial chemotaxis; microfluidics; T-maze geometry; phenotypic heterogeneity; Escherichia coli; chemotactic sensitivity
Organisational unit
09467 - Stocker, Roman / Stocker, Roman