Sequential modification of bacterial chemoreceptors is key for achieving both accurate adaptation and high gain.

ABSTRACT: Many regulatory and signaling proteins have multiple modification sites. In bacterial chemotaxis, each chemoreceptor has multiple methylation sites that are responsible for adaptation. However, whether the ordering of the multisite methylation process affects adaptation remains unclear. Furthermore, the benefit of having multiple modification sites is also unclear. Here, we show that sequentially ordered methylation/demethylation is critical for perfect adaptation; adaptation accuracy decreases as randomness in the multisite methylation process increases. A tradeoff between adaptation accuracy and response gain is discovered. We find that this accuracy-gain tradeoff is lifted significantly by having more methylation sites, but only when the multisite modification process is sequential. Our

SUBMITTER: Mello BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7280522 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature