Wheeler, J.H.R. orcid.org/0009-0006-8677-5086, Foster, K.R. orcid.org/0000-0003-4687-6633 and Durham, W.M. orcid.org/0000-0002-8827-4705 (2024) Individual bacterial cells can use spatial sensing of chemical gradients to direct chemotaxis on surfaces. Nature Microbiology, 9 (9). pp. 2308-2322. ISSN 2058-5276
Abstract
Swimming bacteria navigate chemical gradients using temporal sensing to detect changes in concentration over time. Here we show that surface-attached bacteria use a fundamentally different mode of sensing during chemotaxis. We combined microfluidic experiments, massively parallel cell tracking and fluorescent reporters to study how Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses chemical gradients during pili-based ‘twitching’ chemotaxis on surfaces. Unlike swimming cells, we found that temporal changes in concentration did not induce motility changes in twitching cells. We then quantified the chemotactic behaviour of stationary cells by following changes in the sub-cellular localization of fluorescent proteins as cells are exposed to a gradient that alternates direction. These experiments revealed that P. aeruginosa cells can directly sense differences in concentration across the lengths of their bodies, even in the presence of strong temporal fluctuations. Our work thus overturns the widely held notion that bacterial cells are too small to directly sense chemical gradients in space.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | Chemotaxis; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Fimbriae, Bacterial; Microfluidics; Luminescent Proteins |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2024 13:21 |
Last Modified: | 09 Sep 2024 13:21 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41564-024-01729-3 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216966 |