Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 117, Issue 1, Pages 595-601Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1910849117
Keywords
chemotaxis; selection; fitness cost; growth; metabolism
Categories
Funding
- Max Planck Society
- European Research Council [294761-MicRobE]
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/N00065X/1]
- BBSRC [BB/N00065X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Microorganisms possess diverse mechanisms to regulate investment into individual cellular processes according to their environment. How these regulatory strategies reflect the inherent trade-off between the benefit and cost of resource investment remains largely unknown, particularly for many cellular functions that are not immediately related to growth. Here, we investigate regulation of motility and chemotaxis, one of the most complex and costly bacterial behaviors, as a function of bacterial growth rate. We show with experiment and theory that in poor nutritional conditions, Escherichia coli increases its investment in motility in proportion to the reproductive fitness advantage provided by the ability to follow nutrient gradients. Since this growth-rate dependent regulation of motility genes occurs even when nutrient gradients are absent, we hypothesize that it reflects an anticipatory preallocation of cellular resources. Notably, relative fitness benefit of chemotaxis could be observed not only in the presence of imposed gradients of secondary nutrients but also in initially homogeneous bacterial cultures, suggesting that bacteria can generate local gradients of carbon sources and excreted metabolites, and subsequently use chemotaxis to enhance the utilization of these compounds. This interplay between metabolite excretion and their chemotaxis-dependent reutilization is likely to play an important general role in microbial communities.
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