Speaker
Description
The motility of peritrichous bacteria, such as Escherichia coli (E. coli), is largely governed by “run-and-tumble” movements. E. coli have approximately 6 flagella which they use to propel themselves through viscous media. When these flagella rotate in a counterclockwise manner, the E. coli “run”, and are pushed in a steady direction forward. When the flagella rotate in a clockwise manner, the E. coli “tumble”, leading to a largely erratic motion. These types of movements alternate, resulting in the E. coli performing a random walk. However, this random walk becomes biased in the presence of chemoattractants and chemorepellents due to chemotaxis. During chemotaxis, E. coli will perform a varying number of tumbles and change the duration of runs to follow a gradient to areas of more chemoattractant and less chemorepellent. By simulating the motion of E. coli using a biased run-and-tumble model in Python, patterns in the duration and frequency of runs and tumbles, as well as bacteria cluster sizing, will be measured to elucidate underlying patterns in how E. coli move through different chemoattractant and chemorepellent gradients.
| Keyword-1 | Chemotaxis |
|---|---|
| Keyword-2 | Peritrichous bacteria |
| Keyword-3 | Stochastic simulation |