Systems Biology Program, School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK.
Sci Signal. 2010 Jun 29;3(128):pe23. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.3128pe23.
Bacterial chemotaxis and the signaling networks underlying it provide us with a model system for studying the molecular basis of behavior and information processing. Although chemotaxis is well characterized at both the phenotype and genotype levels in the model organism Escherichia coli, it is not yet possible to predict chemotaxis behavior in diverse bacteria on the basis of their environment or genome sequence. Moreover, we still cannot propose a plausible evolutionary trajectory from minimal systems to present-day chemotaxis networks. The analysis of all sequenced bacterial genomes provides a prediction of their chemotaxis networks and reveals substantial structural diversity. Additionally, it uncovers a set of previously unknown proteins that could be the "missing" link between complex present-day chemotaxis networks and simpler, ancestral systems composed of a few proteins. Further evaluation of these findings with experimental and modeling studies will allow us to distill evolutionary design principles in chemotaxis signaling networks.
细菌的趋化性及其相关信号网络为我们提供了一个研究行为和信息处理分子基础的模型系统。尽管在模式生物大肠杆菌中，趋化性在表型和基因型水平上都得到了很好的描述，但我们仍然无法根据环境或基因组序列来预测不同细菌的趋化行为。此外，我们仍然无法提出从最简系统到现今趋化网络的合理进化轨迹。对所有测序细菌基因组的分析提供了对它们趋化网络的预测，并揭示了大量的结构多样性。此外，它还揭示了一组以前未知的蛋白质，这些蛋白质可能是复杂的现代趋化网络与由少数蛋白质组成的更简单的祖先系统之间的“缺失”联系。通过实验和建模研究进一步评估这些发现，将使我们能够提炼趋化信号网络中的进化设计原则。
