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Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14(5), 9205-9248; doi:10.3390/ijms14059205
Article

Excitation and Adaptation in Bacteria–a Model Signal Transduction System that Controls Taxis and Spatial Pattern Formation

1,* , 1
 and
2
1 School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis,MN 55455, USA 2 Department of Mathematics, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 1 February 2013 / Revised: 20 March 2013 / Accepted: 22 March 2013 / Published: 26 April 2013
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Signalling Molecules and Signal Transduction in Cells)
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Abstract

The machinery for transduction of chemotactic stimuli in the bacterium E. coli is one of the most completely characterized signal transduction systems, and because of its relative simplicity, quantitative analysis of this system is possible. Here we discuss models which reproduce many of the important behaviors of the system. The important characteristics of the signal transduction system are excitation and adaptation, and the latter implies that the transduction system can function as a “derivative sensor” with respect to the ligand concentration in that the DC component of a signal is ultimately ignored if it is not too large. This temporal sensing mechanism provides the bacterium with a memory of its passage through spatially- or temporally-varying signal fields, and adaptation is essential for successful chemotaxis. We also discuss some of the spatial patterns observed in populations and indicate how cell-level behavior can be embedded in population-level descriptions.
Keywords: E. coli; Tar receptor; signal transduction; methylation; phosphorylation E. coli; Tar receptor; signal transduction; methylation; phosphorylation
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Othmer, H.G.; Xin, X.; Xue, C. Excitation and Adaptation in Bacteria–a Model Signal Transduction System that Controls Taxis and Spatial Pattern Formation. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14, 9205-9248.

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Int. J. Mol. Sci. EISSN 1422-0067 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert
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