Adapt locally and act globally: strategy to maintain high chemoreceptor sensitivity in complex environments

Molecular Systems Biology

Ganhui Lan¹  Sonja Schulmeister²  Victor Sourjik² 

[1]IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, NY, USA

[2]Zentrum für Molekulare Biologie der Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

关键词: bacterial chemotaxis;    high sensitivity to multiple signals;    methylation crosstalk;    mixed receptor cluster;    sensory adaptation;   

DOI  :  10.1038/msb.2011.8

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

In bacterial chemotaxis, several types of ligand-specific receptors form mixed clusters, wherein receptor–receptor interactions lead to signal amplification and integration. However, it remains unclear how a mixed receptor cluster adapts to individual stimuli and whether it can differentiate between different types of ligands. Here, we combine theoretical modeling with experiments to reveal the adaptation dynamics of the mixed chemoreceptor cluster in Escherichia coli. We show that adaptation occurs locally and is ligand-specific: only the receptor that binds the external ligand changes its methylation level when the system adapts, whereas other types of receptors change methylation levels transiently. Permanent methylation crosstalk occurs when the system fails to adapt

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-SA   
Copyright © 2011 EMBO and Macmillan Publishers Limited

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This license does not permit commercial exploitation without specific permission.