Advanced ICT Research Institute, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Kobe, Hyogo, 651-2492, Japan.
Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology and Osaka University, Kobe, Hyogo, 651-2492, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2022 Feb 22;12(1):2965. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-06732-4.
Chemical sensing is vital to the survival of all organisms. Bacterial chemotaxis is conducted by multiple receptors that sense chemicals to regulate a single signalling system controlling the transition between the direction (clockwise vs. counterclockwise) of flagellar rotation. Such an integrated system seems better suited to judge chemicals as either favourable or unfavourable, but not for identification purposes though differences in their affinities to the receptors may cause difference in response strength. Here, an experimental setup was developed to monitor behaviours of multiple cells stimulated simultaneously as well as a statistical framework based on Bayesian inferences. Although responses of individual cells varied substantially, ensemble averaging of the time courses seemed characteristic to attractant species, indicating we can extract information of input chemical species from responses of the bacterium. Furthermore, two similar, but distinct, beverages elicited attractant responses of cells with profiles distinguishable with the Bayesian procedure. These results provide a basis for novel bio-inspired sensors that could be used with other cell types to sense wider ranges of chemicals.
化学感应对所有生物的生存都是至关重要的。细菌的趋化作用是由多个受体感知化学物质来调节单一的信号系统控制鞭毛旋转的方向（顺时针或逆时针）。这种集成系统似乎更适合判断化学物质是有利还是不利的，但不适用于识别目的，尽管它们与受体的亲和力差异可能导致响应强度的差异。在这里，开发了一种实验装置来同时监测多个细胞的刺激行为以及基于贝叶斯推断的统计框架。尽管单个细胞的反应差异很大，但时间过程的总体平均似乎是吸引剂物种的特征，这表明我们可以从细菌的反应中提取输入化学物质的信息。此外，两种类似但不同的饮料会引起细胞的吸引反应，细胞的反应特征可以通过贝叶斯程序来区分。这些结果为新型的仿生传感器提供了基础，这些传感器可以与其他细胞类型一起用于感知更广泛的化学物质。
