| Abstrakt: |
Bacterial chemotaxis, i.e., ability of a bacterial cell to sense and migrate towards or away from a chemical concentration gradient, has been a subject of ever-increasing scientific interest. Recent reports on diversity of chemotactic responses have indicated occurrence of the phenomenon amongst almost all the motile bacterial strains irrespective of their taxonomic status. Also, bacterial chemotaxis has been postulated to have a significant role in bacterial survival under unfavorable micro-environments and also in optimal utilization of nutrition resources. These predictions have been ably supported by experimental evidences obtained with in vitro bacterial chemotaxis assays. Chemotactic assays are lab based methods for qualitative/quantitative determination of bacterial chemotactic responses toward test chemical compounds. The first ever chemotaxis assay (capillary assay) was developed during 1960s; several other assays have been developed ever since then. Some of these assays apply a simple approach of only visualizing bacterial movement as an end-point response, while other relatively sophisticated assays monitor chemotactic behavior in a real-time manner. The present chapter provides detailed protocols, requirements, time-consideration and troubleshoots of the commonly implemented bacterial chemotaxis assays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
