Spatiotemporal Modelling of Intracellular Signalling in Bacterial Chemotaxis
by
Marcus Tindall
Centre for Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford.
Coauthors: Steven L. Porter, Philip K. Maini and J.P. Armitage

The role that spatial protein localisation plays in altering the expression

of flagellar motor driving proteins in bacterial chemotaxis has to date largely been ignored. The work presented here focuses on two spatiotemporal

reaction-diffusion models of signal transduction developed to describe phosphotransfer within E. coli and R. sphaeroides. R. sphaeroides

is a bacterial species whose phosphotransfer pathway is considerably more

complex than E. coli. The mathematical model developed is used to understand

the role that spatial protein localisation has on affecting the motor protein expression, both dynamically and in the steady-state. The

model is used to elucidate the role that cytoplasmic and receptor clusters

play in describing the overall bacterial response.

Date received: May 15, 2008