期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1989
卷号：86
期号：18
页码：6973-6977
DOI：10.1073/pnas.86.18.6973
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：We studied the migration through semisolid agar of chemotactic and nonchemotactic cells of Escherichia coli. While swarms of nonchemotactic cells were generally smaller than those of chemotactic cells, they varied markedly in size and in structure. Cells that failed to tumble or that tumbled incessantly formed the smallest swarms. Cells that tumbled at intermediate frequencies formed much larger swarms, even when deleted for many of the genes known to be required for chemotaxis. Surprisingly, the higher the tumble frequency, the larger the swarms. Microscopic examination revealed that tumbles enable cells to back away from obstructions in the agar. Thus, not all cells that swarm effectively need be chemotactic.
