Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Bacteria use taxis-controlled movement to reach their optimum environment. Chemotaxis is probably the best understood behavioural system in biology, biasing the normal random movement of bacteria using a phospho-relay pathway from receptors to the motility organelles. The pathways are typified by signal recognition and receptor adaptation, enabling bacteria to sense and respond to changing environments. Models have been derived from the single chemosensory pathway of Escherichia coli but the sequencing of an increasing number of bacterial genomes is revealing genes that apparently encode multiple chemosensory pathways. Recently, data have accumulated suggesting that some of these pathways might not control motility, although the mechanisms by which this might happen remain unclear. Information from the soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus could lead the way to an understanding of such mechanisms.

Type

Journal article

Journal

Trends Microbiol

Publication Date

06/2003

Volume

11

Pages

239 - 242

Keywords

Models, Genetic, Movement, Multigene Family, Myxococcus xanthus, Signal Transduction, Soil Microbiology