Self-organized periodicity of protein clusters in growing bacteria.

Publication Year
2008

Type

Journal Article
Abstract
Chemotaxis receptors in E. coli form clusters at the cell poles and also laterally along the cell body, and this clustering plays an important role in signal transduction. Recently, experiments using fluorescence imaging have shown that, during cell growth, lateral clusters form at positions approximately periodically spaced along the cell body. In this Letter, we demonstrate within a lattice model that such spatial organization could arise spontaneously from a stochastic nucleation mechanism. The same mechanism may explain the recent observation of periodic aggregates of misfolded proteins in E. coli.
Journal
Phys Rev Lett
Volume
101
Issue
21
Pages
218101
Date Published
11/2008
ISSN Number
0031-9007
Alternate Journal
Phys. Rev. Lett.
PMID
19113453