journal.pcbi.1001004.pdf (1.29 MB)
A Minimal Model of Metabolism Based Chemotaxis
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 08:03 authored by Matthew D Egbert, Xabier E Barandiarian, Ezequiel Di PaoloSince 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.
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- Published
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- Published version
Journal
PLoS Computational BiologyISSN
1553-734XPublisher
Public Library of ScienceExternal DOI
Issue
12Volume
6Article number
e1001004Department affiliated with
- Informatics Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-02-06First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-03-22First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-11-17Usage metrics
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