2017/04/21 by Glenn D. Young, Young, Glenn, Mahmut Demir +7 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth #Protein Structure and Dynamics #Molecular Communication and Nanonetworks
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1704.06678
We study an anomalous behavior observed in interacting E. coli populations.\nWhen two populations of E. coli are placed on opposite ends of a long channel\nwith a supply of nutrient between them, they will travel as pulses toward one\nanother up the nutrient gradient. We present experimental evidence that,\ncounterintuitively, the two pulses will in some cases change direction and be-\ngin moving away from each other and the nutrient back toward the end of the\nchannel from which they originated. Simulations of the Keller-Segel chemotaxis\nmodel reproduce the experimental results. To gain better insight to the\nphenomenon, we introduce a heuristic approximation to the spatial profile of\neach population in the Keller-Segel model to derive a system of ordinary\ndifferential equations approximating the temporal dynamics of its center of\nmass and width. This approximate model simplifies analysis of the global\ndynamics of the bacterial system and allows us to efficiently explore the\nqualitative behavior changes across variations of parameters, and thereby\nprovides experimentally testable hypotheses about the mechanisms behind the\nturnaround behavior.\n