nucleation

THEORY-1209: In genetically identical E. coli, a cell's swarming potential is a transient inherited state: its descendants share it for about four generations and lose it by about seven, and it tracks the cell's iron status rather than a bistable switch

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Properties4
StatusProposed
Tagsnatural-sciences, complex-systems
SourceLIT-853 — A heritable iron memory enables decision-making in Escherichia coli
ExtendsTHEORY-179 — In Bhattacharyya et al.'s single-cell swarm assays of E. coli MG1655, the daughters of one mother swarmed alike at the fourth generation sampled and varied again at the seventh; swarm size correlated with a plasmid fepA-promoter reporter of Fur derepression by low iron (Spearman r = 0.71), and an iron chelator or added iron shifted swarming and held the shared state longer; a three-class switching model fitted to two time points matched the lineages only with a delay of three to four generations before switching, which the authors read as ruling out a bistable switch

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Source

LIT-853, read in full in NOTE-657. What the source measured is THEORY-179, which this entry extends.

The claim

The authors argue that a single E. coli cell’s swarming potential is a transient physiological state set by its iron status, passed to its descendants for a few generations and then relaxed, and not a bistable switch.

What would settle it

The promote_when, carried word for word from THEORY-179 when that entry was narrowed. More readings of the same source cannot settle it.

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