Biology of the Chemotactic Response

Book excerpt: The tendency of a living organism to move to a more favourable environment is a natural but complex reaction, involving the integration of sometimes conflicting environmental stimuli as well as a coordinated mechanical response. The response of motile, single cell organisms to environmental stimuli provides a useful model for understanding first of all how the environment is monitored and sensed, and secondly how this information is processed to result in an integrated and coordinated response. The volume looks at a large number of well-studied examples of the chemotactic response, in prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and casts new light on how cells process information and react to their environment. This fundamental response is of great importance in understanding one of the characteristic features of living organisms.