Steady-state chemotaxis in Escherichia coli

Abstract

The bacterium E. coli maneuvers itself to regions with high chemoattractant concentrations by performing two stereotypical moves: "runs," in which it moves in near-straight lines, and "tumbles," in which it does not advance but changes direction randomly. The duration of each move is stochastic and depends upon the chemoattractant concentration experienced in the recent past. We relate this stochastic behavior to the steady-state density of a bacterium population, and we derive the latter as a function of chemoattractant concentration. In contrast to earlier treatments, here we account for the effects of temporal correlations and variable tumbling durations. A range of behaviors is obtained that depends subtly upon several aspects of the system -- memory, correlation, and tumbling stochasticity, in particular.