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Decoding the Chemical Language of Motile Bacteria by Using High‐Throughput Microfluidic Assays
Author(s) -
Crooks John A.,
Stilwell Matthew D.,
Oliver Piercen M.,
Zhong Zhou,
Weibel Douglas B.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.201500324
Subject(s) - chemotaxis , bacteria , microfluidics , chemotaxis assay , biology , chemoreceptor , escherichia coli , motility , high throughput screening , throughput , computational biology , microbiology and biotechnology , nanotechnology , receptor , biochemistry , genetics , computer science , gene , materials science , telecommunications , wireless
Motile bacteria navigate chemical environments by using chemoreceptors. The output of these protein sensors is linked to motility machinery and enables bacteria to follow chemical gradients. Understanding the chemical specificity of different families of chemoreceptors is essential for predicting and controlling bacterial behavior in ecological niches, including symbiotic and pathogenic interactions with plants and mammals. The identification of chemical(s) recognized by specific families of receptors is limited by the low throughput and complexity of chemotaxis assays. To address this challenge, we developed a microfluidic‐based chemotaxis assay that is quantitative, simple, and enables high‐throughput measurements of bacterial response to different chemicals. Using the model bacterium Escherichia coli , we demonstrated a strategy for identifying molecules that activate chemoreceptors from a diverse compound library and for determining how global behavioral strategies are tuned to chemical environments.