Egbert, Matthew D, Barandiarian, Xabier E and Di Paolo, Ezequiel A (2010) A Minimal Model of Metabolism Based Chemotaxis. PLoS Computational Biology, 6 (12). e1001004. ISSN 1553-734X

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Abstract

Since the pioneering work by Julius Adler in the 1960's, bacterial chemotaxis has been predominantly studied as metabolism-independent. All available simulation models of bacterial chemotaxis endorse this assumption. Recent studies have shown, however, that many metabolism-dependent chemotactic patterns occur in bacteria. We hereby present the simplest artificial protocell model capable of performing metabolism-based chemotaxis. The model serves as a proof of concept to show how even the simplest metabolism can sustain chemotactic patterns of varying sophistication. It also reproduces a set of phenomena that have recently attracted attention on bacterial chemotaxis and provides insights about alternative mechanisms that could instantiate them. We conclude that relaxing the metabolism-independent assumption provides important theoretical advances, forces us to rethink some established pre-conceptions and may help us better understand unexplored and poorly understood aspects of bacterial chemotaxis.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Engineering and Informatics > Informatics
Depositing User:	Matthew Egbert
Date Deposited:	06 Feb 2012 20:51
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2019 20:45
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/28456

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