Stochastic switching between multistable oscillation patterns of the Min-system

Abstract

The spatiotemporal oscillation patterns of the proteins MinD and MinE are used by the bacterium E. coli to sense its own geometry. Strikingly, both computer simulations and experiments have recently shown that for the same geometry of the reaction volume, different oscillation patterns can be stable, with stochastic switching between them. Here we use particle-based Brownian dynamics simulations to predict the relative frequency of different oscillation patterns over a large range of three-dimensional compartment geometries, in excellent agreement with experimental results. Fourier analyses as well as pattern recognition algorithms are used to automatically identify the different oscillation patterns and the switching rates between them. We also identify novel oscillation patterns in three-dimensional compartments with membrane-covered walls and identify a linear relation between the bound Min-protein densities and the volume-to-surface ratio. In general, our work shows how geometry sensing is limited by multistability and stochastic fluctuations.

38 pages with 14 main figures; supplemental text with supplemental figures included as appendix

References in corpus (3)

• Cellular organization by self-organization : mechanisms and models for Min protein dynamics
• Min-oscillations in Escherichia coli induced by interactions of membrane-bound proteins
• Min-protein oscillations in Escherichia coli with spontaneous formation of two-stranded filaments in a three-dimensional stochastic reaction-diffusion model