A Non-Poissonian Flagellar Motor Switch Increases Bacterial Chemotactic Potential.
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.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Yang
Y
Yang
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Jing
J
He
Department of Physics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
Tuba
T
Altindal
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Li
L
Xie
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Electronic address: xlwu@pitt.edu.
Xiao-Lun
XL
Wu
D002633:Chemotaxis; D005407:Flagella / Q000378:metabolism; D007700:Kinetics; D008954:Models, Biological; D044149:Vibrio alginolyticus / Q000166:cytology*