title: Physical constraints on the establishment of intracellular spatial gradients in bacteria.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Bacteria dynamically regulate their intricate intracellular organization involving proteins that facilitate cell division, motility, and numerous other processes. Consistent with this sophisticated organization, bacteria are able to create asymmetries and spatial gradients of proteins by localizing signaling pathway components. We use mathematical modeling to investigate the biochemical and physical constraints on the generation of intracellular gradients by the asymmetric localization of a source and a sink.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We present a systematic computational analysis of the effects of other regulatory mechanisms, such as synthesis, degradation, saturation, and cell growth. We also demonstrate that gradients can be established in a variety of bacterial morphologies such as rods, crescents, spheres, branched and constricted cells.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Taken together, these results suggest that gradients are a robust and potentially common mechanism for providing intracellular spatial cues.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. kchuang@stanford.edu.
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tropini
authors.forename: Naveed
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rabbani
authors.forename: Kerwyn Casey
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Huang