Abstract
We observed that bacteria grown below a critical concentration, in batch-mode cultures, swim towards warm regions when subjected to a temperature gradient. Above that concentration, they swim towards colder regions. Our findings indicate that the secreted intercellular signal, glycine, mediates this switch through methylation of Tsr receptors. At high bacterial concentration, the switch is reinforced by an inversion of the Tar/Tsr expression ratio.
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Acknowledgements
We thank David S. Thaler, Lee M. Kiang and Yuhai Tu for their helpful advice. We also thank Oliver Dreesen and the Hemmati Brivanlou Laboratory for their help with the real-time PCR. For the gift of mutant bacteria, we are grateful to the labs of Robert H. Austin and Jeffery B. Stock from Princeton University, New Jersey.
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Salman, H., Libchaber, A. A concentration-dependent switch in the bacterial response to temperature. Nat Cell Biol 9, 1098–1100 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1632
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1632
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