Local growth rules can maintain metabolically efficient spatial structure throughout growth.

ABSTRACT: A ubiquitous feature of bacterial communities is the existence of spatial structures. These are often coupled to metabolism, whereby the spatial organization can improve chemical reaction efficiency. However, it is not clear whether or how a desired colony configuration, for example, one that optimizes some overall global objective, could be achieved by individual cells that do not have knowledge of their positions or of the states of all other cells. By using a model which consists of cells producing enzymes that catalyze coupled metabolic reactions, we show that simple, local rules can be sufficient for achieving a global, community-level goal. In particular, even though the optimal configuration varies with colony size, we demonstrate that cells regulating their relative enzyme levels b

SUBMITTER: Guo Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5889676 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature