Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.

Bacteria move towards favourable and away from toxic environments by changing their swimming pattern. This response is regulated by the chemotaxis signalling pathway, which has an important feature: it uses feedback to 'reset' (adapt) the bacterial sensing ability, which allows the bacteri...

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Main Authors: Abdullah Hamadeh, Mark A J Roberts, Elias August, Patrick E McSharry, Philip K Maini, Judith P Armitage, Antonis Papachristodoulou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2011-05-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001130&type=printable
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author Abdullah Hamadeh
Mark A J Roberts
Elias August
Patrick E McSharry
Philip K Maini
Judith P Armitage
Antonis Papachristodoulou
author_facet Abdullah Hamadeh
Mark A J Roberts
Elias August
Patrick E McSharry
Philip K Maini
Judith P Armitage
Antonis Papachristodoulou
author_sort Abdullah Hamadeh
collection DOAJ
description Bacteria move towards favourable and away from toxic environments by changing their swimming pattern. This response is regulated by the chemotaxis signalling pathway, which has an important feature: it uses feedback to 'reset' (adapt) the bacterial sensing ability, which allows the bacteria to sense a range of background environmental changes. The role of this feedback has been studied extensively in the simple chemotaxis pathway of Escherichia coli. However it has been recently found that the majority of bacteria have multiple chemotaxis homologues of the E. coli proteins, resulting in more complex pathways. In this paper we investigate the configuration and role of feedback in Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a bacterium containing multiple homologues of the chemotaxis proteins found in E. coli. Multiple proteins could produce different possible feedback configurations, each having different chemotactic performance qualities and levels of robustness to variations and uncertainties in biological parameters and to intracellular noise. We develop four models corresponding to different feedback configurations. Using a series of carefully designed experiments we discriminate between these models and invalidate three of them. When these models are examined in terms of robustness to noise and parametric uncertainties, we find that the non-invalidated model is superior to the others. Moreover, it has a 'cascade control' feedback architecture which is used extensively in engineering to improve system performance, including robustness. Given that the majority of bacteria are known to have multiple chemotaxis pathways, in this paper we show that some feedback architectures allow them to have better performance than others. In particular, cascade control may be an important feature in achieving robust functionality in more complex signalling pathways and in improving their performance.
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spelling doaj-art-09a8c98e8f2f46459f9cdc9773f0d62b2025-08-20T03:10:02ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582011-05-0175e100113010.1371/journal.pcbi.1001130Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.Abdullah HamadehMark A J RobertsElias AugustPatrick E McSharryPhilip K MainiJudith P ArmitageAntonis PapachristodoulouBacteria move towards favourable and away from toxic environments by changing their swimming pattern. This response is regulated by the chemotaxis signalling pathway, which has an important feature: it uses feedback to 'reset' (adapt) the bacterial sensing ability, which allows the bacteria to sense a range of background environmental changes. The role of this feedback has been studied extensively in the simple chemotaxis pathway of Escherichia coli. However it has been recently found that the majority of bacteria have multiple chemotaxis homologues of the E. coli proteins, resulting in more complex pathways. In this paper we investigate the configuration and role of feedback in Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a bacterium containing multiple homologues of the chemotaxis proteins found in E. coli. Multiple proteins could produce different possible feedback configurations, each having different chemotactic performance qualities and levels of robustness to variations and uncertainties in biological parameters and to intracellular noise. We develop four models corresponding to different feedback configurations. Using a series of carefully designed experiments we discriminate between these models and invalidate three of them. When these models are examined in terms of robustness to noise and parametric uncertainties, we find that the non-invalidated model is superior to the others. Moreover, it has a 'cascade control' feedback architecture which is used extensively in engineering to improve system performance, including robustness. Given that the majority of bacteria are known to have multiple chemotaxis pathways, in this paper we show that some feedback architectures allow them to have better performance than others. In particular, cascade control may be an important feature in achieving robust functionality in more complex signalling pathways and in improving their performance.https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001130&type=printable
spellingShingle Abdullah Hamadeh
Mark A J Roberts
Elias August
Patrick E McSharry
Philip K Maini
Judith P Armitage
Antonis Papachristodoulou
Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
PLoS Computational Biology
title Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
title_full Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
title_fullStr Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
title_full_unstemmed Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
title_short Feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network.
title_sort feedback control architecture and the bacterial chemotaxis network
url https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1001130&type=printable
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