Biased re-orientation in the chemotaxis of peritrichous bacteria

Many kinds of peritrichous bacteria that repeat runs and tumbles by using multiple flagella exhibit chemotaxis by sensing a difference in the concentration of the attractant or repellent between two adjacent time points. If a cell senses that the concentration of an attractant has increased, their flagellar motors decrease the switching frequency from counterclockwise to clockwise direction of rotation, which causes a longer run in swimming up the concentration gradient than swimming down. We investigated the turn angle in tumbles of peritrichous bacteria swimming across the concentration gradient of a chemoattractant because the change in the switching frequency in the rotational direction may affect the way tumbles. We tracked several hundreds of runs and tumbles of single Salmonella typhimurium cells in the concentration gradient of L-serine, and found that the turn angle depends on the concentration gradient that the cell senses just before the tumble. The turn angle is biased toward a smaller value when the cells swim up the concentration gradient, whereas the distribution of the angle is almost uniform (random direction) when the cells swim down the gradient. The effect of the observed bias in the turn angle on the degree of chemotaxis was investigated by random walk simulation. In the concentration field where attractants diffuse concentrically from the point source, we found that this angular distribution clearly affects the reduction of the mean square displacement of the cell that has started at the attractant source, that is, the bias in the turn angle distribution contributes to chemotaxis in peritrichous bacteria. Statement of SignificanceWe found another aspect in the chemotactic behavior of peritrichous bacteria. Chemotactic behaviors in peritrichous bacteria were predicted to be observed at the turn angles during tumbles motion as well as at the duration of runs; smaller changes in the swimming direction of cells swimming up the attractants gradient can be observed. This behavior is appropriate because the nature of bacterial chemotaxis changes the switching rate of the rotational direction of the flagellar motors according to the environment. Cells swimming upward reduce the turn angle by switching fewer flagellar motors to loosen flagellar filaments from the bundle during tumbles. We have shown that this prediction is correct.