Abstract
THE responses of motile bacteria to various chemicals were studied in the 1880s by Pfeffer1, who inserted a capillary tube containing a solution of an attractant into a suspension of bacteria and noted that the bacteria accumulated first near the mouth of the capillary and then inside. The assay has been developed further by Adler2,3, who measured the number of bacteria which enter the capillary in a fixed period of time. With the advent of the tracking microscope4 it has been possible to analyse responses of individual bacteria in detail5. For the analysis to be meaningful the concentration of the attractant must be known at each point in space and time. Therefore, we have solved the problem of diffusion from a small tube into a large pond. The solution also enables us to explain the general features of the Pfeffer assay.
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References
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FUTRELLE, R., BERG, H. Specification of Gradients used for Studies of Chemotaxis. Nature 239, 517–518 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1038/239517a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/239517a0
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