Phosphate taxis in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa was shown to be attracted to phosphate. The chemotactic response was induced by phosphate starvation. The specificity of chemoreceptors for phosphate was high so that no other tested phosphorus compounds elicited a chemotactic response as strong as that elicited by phosphate. Competition experiments showed that the chemoreceptors for phosphate appeared to be different from those for the common amino acids. Mutants constitutive for alkaline phosphatase showed the chemotactic response to phosphate regardless of whether the cells were starved for phosphate.