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Relation between chemotaxis and consumption of amino acids in bacteria
Author(s) -
Yang Yiling,
M. Pollard Abiola,
Höfler Carolin,
Poschet Gernot,
Wirtz Markus,
Hell Rüdiger,
Sourjik Victor
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
molecular microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.857
H-Index - 247
eISSN - 1365-2958
pISSN - 0950-382X
DOI - 10.1111/mmi.13006
Subject(s) - chemotaxis , bacillus subtilis , biology , bacteria , escherichia coli , amino acid , nutrient , function (biology) , biochemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , ecology , genetics , gene , receptor
Summary Chemotaxis enables bacteria to navigate chemical gradients in their environment, accumulating toward high concentrations of attractants and avoiding high concentrations of repellents. Although finding nutrients is likely to be an important function of bacterial chemotaxis, not all characterized attractants are nutrients. Moreover, even for potential nutrients, the exact relation between the metabolic value of chemicals and their efficiency as chemoattractants has not been systematically explored. Here we compare the chemotactic response of amino acids with their use by bacteria for two well‐established models of chemotactic behavior, E scherichia coli and B acillus subtilis . We demonstrate that in E . coli chemotaxis toward amino acids indeed strongly correlates with their utilization. However, no such correlation is observed for B . subtilis , suggesting that in this case, the amino acids are not followed because of their nutritional value but rather as environmental cues.