Motility and chemotaxis of filamentous cells of Escherichia coli

Filamentous cells of Escherichia coli can be produced by treatment with the antibiotic cephalexin, which blocks cell division but allows cell growth, To explore the effect of cell size on chemotactic activity, we studied the motility and chemotaxis of filamentous cells, The filaments, up to 50 times the length of normal E. coli organisms, were motile and had flagella along their entire lengths. Despite their increased size, the motility and chemotaxis of filaments were very similar to those properties of normal-sized cells. Unstimulated filaments of chemotactically normal bacteria ran and stopped repeatedly (while normal-sized bacteria run and tumble repeatedly). Filaments responded to attractants by prolonged running (like normal-sized bacteria) and to repellents by prolonged stopping (unlike normal-sized bacteria, which tumble), until adaptation restored unstimulated behavior (as occurs with normal-sized cells). Chemotaxis mutants that always ran when they were normal sized always ran when they were filament sized, and those mutants that always tumbled when they were normal sized always stopped when they were filament sized. Chemoreceptors in filaments were localized to regions both at the poles and at intervals along the filament. We suggest that the location of the chemoreceptors enables the chemotactic responses observed in filaments. The implications of this work with regard to the cytoplasmic diffusion of chemotaxis components in normal-sized and filamentous E. coli are discussed.