Chemotaxis in marine flagellates: A critical review.

摘要

Chemotaxis, the preferential movement of an organism up or down the gradient of a chemical signal, may be an important mechanism influencing spatio-temporal distributions of marine flagellates in the water column. Potential ecological contexts for chemotaxis include increased exposure to dissolved nutrients, mate seeking, and avoidance of deleterious substances. Research on chemotaxis in marine flagellates is in its infancy, and the ability to follow chemical gradients has been demonstrated in only a few species. Decades of foundational research, however, has been conducted on other free-living microorganisms. This research, much of it on the bacterium Escherichia coli, is a wellspring of experimental techniques and theoretical knowledge that may, with some provisos, serve to accelerate investigation into marine flagellates. An introduction to chemotaxis assays, theory, and modeling that draws heavily on historical work with E. coli is presented here. It precedes a critical discussion of marine flagellate research pertaining to chemotaxis.