Chemotaxis in Escherichia coli

Chemotaxis means the movement of motile organisms toward or away from chemicals. In bacteria chemotaxis has been known to occur ever since the end of the nineteenth century, due to the work of Engelmann, Pfeffer, Beyerinck, Jennings, and other microbiologists (for a review see Weibull 1960). The phenomenon, however, has seldom been described in quantitative terms, and modern studies of chemotaxis in bacteria are almost completely lacking. One notable exception is the work of Baracchini and Sherris (1959) on oxygen taxis in a variety of bacteria. Another modern study, in a related area, is the extensive work of Clayton (1959) on phototaxis in photosynthetic bacteria.