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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phototaxis | 2/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phototaxis | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:16:22.043277+00:00 | kb-cron |
The ability to link light perception to control of motility is found in a very wide variety of prokaryotes, indicating that this ability must confer a range of physiological advantages. Most directly, the light environment is crucial to phototrophs as their energy source. Phototrophic prokaryotes are extraordinarily diverse, with a likely role for horizontal gene transfer in spreading phototrophy across multiple phyla. Thus, different groups of phototrophic prokaryotes may have little in common apart from their exploitation of light as an energy source, but it should be advantageous for any phototroph to be able to relocate in search of better light environments for photosynthesis. To do this efficiently requires the ability to control motility in response to integrated information on the intensity of light, the spectral quality of light and the physiological status of the cell. A second major reason for light-controlled motility is to avoid light at damaging intensities or wavelengths: this factor is not confined to photosynthetic bacteria since light (especially in the UV region) can be dangerous to all prokaryotes, primarily because of DNA and protein damage and inhibition of the translation machinery by light-generated reactive oxygen species. Finally, light signals potentially contain rich and complex information about the environment, and the possibility should not be excluded that bacteria make sophisticated use of this information to optimize their location and behavior. For example, plant or animal pathogens could use light information to control their location and interaction with their hosts, and in fact light signals are known to regulate development and virulence in several non-phototrophic prokaryotes. Phototrophs could also benefit from sophisticated information processing, since their optimal environment is defined by a complex combination of factors including light intensity, light quality, day and night cycles, the availability of raw materials and alternative energy sources, other beneficial or harmful physical and chemical factors and sometimes the presence of symbiotic partners. Light quality strongly influences specialized developmental pathways in certain filamentous cyanobacteria, including the development of motile hormogonia and nitrogen-fixing heterocysts. Since hormogonia are important for establishing symbiotic partnerships between cyanobacteria and plants, and heterocysts are essential for nitrogen fixation in those partnerships, it is tempting to speculate that the cyanobacteria may be using light signals as one way to detect the proximity of a plant symbiotic partner. Within a complex and heterogeneous environment such as a phototrophic biofilm, many factors crucial for growth could vary dramatically even within the limited region that a single motile cell could explore. We should therefore expect that prokaryotes living in such environments might control their motility in response to a complex signal transduction network linking a range of environmental cues. The photophobic response is a change in the direction of motility in response to a relatively sudden increase in illumination: classically, the response is to a temporal change in light intensity, which the bacterium may experience as it moves into a brightly illuminated region. The directional switch may consist of a random selection of a new direction ('tumbling') or it may be a simple reversal in the direction of motility. Either has the effect of repelling cells from a patch of unfavorable light. Photophobic responses have been observed in prokaryotes as diverse as Escherichia coli, purple photosynthetic bacteria and haloarchaea. The scotophobic (fear of darkness) response is the converse of the photophobic response described above: a change in direction (tumbling or reversal) is induced when the cell experiences a relatively sudden drop in light intensity. Photophobic and scotophobic responses both cause cells to accumulate in regions of specific (presumably favorable) light intensity and spectral quality. Scotophobic responses have been well documented in purple photosynthetic bacteria, starting with the classic observations of Engelmann in 1883, and in cyanobacteria. Scotophobic/photophobic responses in flagellated bacteria closely resemble the classic 'biased random walk' mode of bacterial chemotaxis, which links perception of temporal changes in the concentration of a chemical attractant or repellent to the frequency of tumbling. The only significant distinction is that the scotophobic/photophobic responses involve perception of temporal changes in light intensity rather than the concentration of a chemical. Photokinesis is a light-induced change in the speed (but not direction) of movement. Photokinesis may be negative (light-induced reduction of motility) or positive (light-induced stimulation of motility). Photokinesis can cause cells to accumulate in regions of favorable illumination: they linger in such regions or accelerate out of regions of unfavorable illumination. Photokinesis has been documented in cyanobacteria and purple photosynthetic bacteria. True phototaxis consists of directional movement which may be either towards a light source (positive phototaxis) or away from a light source (negative phototaxis). In contrast to the photophobic/scotophobic responses, true phototaxis is not a response to a temporal change in light intensity. Generally, it seems to involve direct sensing of the direction of illumination rather than a spatial gradient of light intensity. True phototaxis in prokaryotes is sometimes combined with social motility, which involves the concerted movement of an entire colony of cells towards or away from the light source. This phenomenon could also be described as community phototaxis. True phototaxis is widespread in eukaryotic green algae, but among the prokaryotes it has been documented only in cyanobacteria, and in social motility of colonies of the purple photosynthetic bacterium Rhodocista centenaria.
== Phototaxis in protists ==