Genetics of bacterial chemotaxis

Many types of motile bacteria are capable of detecting and responding to changes in their environment. Phototactic, chemotactic and thermotactic movements in bacteria are similar to more complex behaviours seen in higher organisms, and constitute useful model systems for investigating the molecular events underlying sensory transduction phenomena. The best-studied of these systems is the chemotactic behaviour of Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium. Extensive genetic and biochemical analyses of the chemotaxis machinery in these organisms has led to an intriguing picture of how bacteria detect and process sensory information. At the molecular level, the chemotactic apparatus of bacteria has proven to be surprisingly sophisticated, although many of the mechanistic details are still poorly understood.