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Swimming in Information? Physical Limits to Learning by Quorum Sensing

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The Physical Basis of Bacterial Quorum Communication

Part of the book series: Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering ((BIOMEDICAL))

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Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) bacteria use diffusible signals to gather information about their environment. The QS mechanism is clearly well suited for the regulation of bacterial social behaviors, as it permits the detection of the bacterial population density or the presence of other species and it allows the coordination of group response. Here we ask how an individual cell might benefit from using a QS regulatory circuit. This article reviews some of the basic physical problems that limit the ability of an individual cell to learn about its environment through QS. The kinetics of diffusion, noise in gene regulation, and the nonlinearity of signal response all place limits on the amount of information that the cell can gather. While diffusional signaling allows some remarkable collective behaviors, such as tight synchronization of gene regulation even over macroscopic distances, physical constraints clearly limit the individual cell’s ability to learn about its environment.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by an award from the National Science Foundation, MCB 0347124. The author also gratefully acknowledges current and former members and associates of the laboratory, including Patrick De Leenheer, Gabriel Dilanji, Minjun Son, Jessica Langebrake, Rupika Madhavan, Lauren McLeod, Pablo Pérez, Max Teplitski, and Joel Weiss.

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  1. Physics Department, University of Florida, 118440, Gainesville, FL, 36211-8440, USA

    Stephen J. Hagen

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Correspondence to Stephen J. Hagen .

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  1. Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    Stephen J. Hagen

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Hagen, S.J. (2015). Swimming in Information? Physical Limits to Learning by Quorum Sensing. In: Hagen, S. (eds) The Physical Basis of Bacterial Quorum Communication. Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1402-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1402-9_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1401-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1402-9

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