Schedule Aug 17, 2003
Pattern Formation Inside Bacteria
Andrew Rutenberg (Dalhousie University)

E. coli locate their division midplane through the oscillation of "Min" proteins from end to end of the 2 micron bacterium, with a period of 1-2 minutes. We show how a reaction-diffusion system can describe this phenomenon. Since there are only on the order of one thousand copies of each protein inside the bacterium, stochastic effects can be significant. We have modeled stochastic effects in this reaction-diffusion system. Surprisingly, we find that fluctuations can significantly enlarge the oscillating parameter space. We also find that bacteria express sufficient copies of proteins to minimize division errors.

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