A Physicist Looks at Bacterial Chemotaxis
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
In this paper, a survey is given of the ways in which the enteric bacterium Escherichia coli (or Salmonella typhimurium) senses and responds to chemical stimuli. If one is to appreciate the molecular biology of signal transduction, it helps to understand the problems that the molecular biology is meant to solve. E. coli has managed to find its way in the world in the face of daunting physical constraints. These constraints arise because the organism is microscopic and immersed in an aqueous environment. In the realm of sensory transduction, not everything that is true for the colon bacillus is true for the elephant.
Matters of Size
To better appreciate the subject of scale, consider the differences in size of Homo sapiens, E. coli, and the flagellar basal apparatus of E. coli (Fig. 1). E. coli lives in the human gut. It outnumbers all other motile organisms attending this Symposium by...
