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Bacterial chemotaxis

United we sense ⃛

Nature volume 393, pages 19–21 (1998)Cite this article

Biological systems show remarkably sensitive responses to a wide range of environmental signals. The visual system, for example, can be excited by a single photon, yet can also detect contrasts over a 10,000-fold range of light intensities. How is this impressive combination of sensitivity and wide dynamic range achieved?

On page 85 of this issue1, Bray, Levin and Morton-Firth describe how they have studied this question in the context of bacterial chemotaxis, a system that has emerged as a prototype for investigating mechanisms by which cells sense and process information about their surroundings. Bacteria such as Escherichia coli can sense chemical attractants over a concentration range of several orders of magnitude, responding even to small signals in which a minute fraction of the chemotaxis receptors bind ligand.

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Figure 1: The chemotactic network.

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  1. Departments of Physics and Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, 08544, New Jersey, USA

    N. Barkai & S. Leibler

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  1. N. Barkai
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  2. S. Leibler
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Barkai, N., Leibler, S. United we sense ⃛. Nature 393, 19–21 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/29881

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