Hidden Stochastic Nature of a Single Bacterial Motor

Ekaterina A. Korobkova, Thierry Emonet, Heungwon Park, and Philippe Cluzel
Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 058105 – Published 7 February 2006

Abstract

The rotary flagellar motor of Escherichia coli bacterium switches stochastically between the clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) direction. We found that the CW and CCW intervals could be described by a gamma distribution, suggesting the existence of hidden Markov steps preceding each motor switch. Power spectra of time series of switching events exhibited a peaking frequency instead of the Lorentzian profile expected from standard kinetic two-state models. Our analysis indicates that the number of hidden steps may be a key dynamical parameter underlying the switching process in a single bacterial motor as well as in large cooperative molecular systems.

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  • Received 13 September 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.058105

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Ekaterina A. Korobkova, Thierry Emonet, Heungwon Park, and Philippe Cluzel

  • The Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, The James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, 56540 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 5 — 10 February 2006

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