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Barrier Crossing in Escherichia coli Chemotaxis

Zhaojun Li, Qiuxian Cai, Xuanqi Zhang, Guangwei Si, Qi Ouyang, Chunxiong Luo, and Yuhai Tu
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 098101 – Published 28 February 2017
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Abstract

We study cell navigation in spatiotemporally complex environments by developing a microfluidic racetrack device that creates a traveling wave with multiple peaks and a tunable wave speed. We find that while the population-averaged chemotaxis drift speed increases with wave speed for low wave speed, it decreases sharply for high wave speed. This reversed dependence of population-averaged chemotaxis drift speed on wave speed is caused by a “barrier-crossing” phenomenon, where a cell hops backwards from one peak attractant location to the peak behind by crossing an unfavorable (barrier) region with low attractant concentrations. By using a coarse-grained model of chemotaxis, we map bacterial motility in an attractant field to the random motion of an overdamped particle in an effective potential. The observed barrier-crossing phenomenon of living cells and its dependence on the spatiotemporal profile of attractant concentration are explained quantitatively by Kramers reaction rate theory.

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  • Received 26 July 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.098101

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics of Living Systems

Synopsis

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Racing Bacteria

Published 28 February 2017

Bacteria track fast-moving chemical signals by hopping from one chemically favorable region to another.

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Authors & Affiliations

Zhaojun Li1, Qiuxian Cai1, Xuanqi Zhang1, Guangwei Si1, Qi Ouyang1,2,3, Chunxiong Luo1,3,*, and Yuhai Tu1,4,†

  • 1Center for Quantitative Biology, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • 2Center for Quantitative Biology, Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • 3The State Key Laboratory for Artificial Microstructures and Mesoscopic Physics, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • 4IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, USA

  • *pkuluocx@pku.edu.cn
  • yuhai@us.ibm.com

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Issue

Vol. 118, Iss. 9 — 3 March 2017

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