Henry’s paper about phenotypic inheritance in bacterial waves

September 23, 2021

Henry’s newest paper is up on bioRxiv! Through theory and simulations, Henry discovered a mechanism for bacterial populations to to adapt their phenotypic composition as they move through the environment. In migrating waves of chemotactic bacteria, phenotypes sort spatially. As cells near the back of the wave fall off from the group, the population becomes enriched for high-performance phenotypes, enhancing migration speed and growth. What happens if this population suddenly encounters a new environment however? How quickly the population adjusts to this new environment depends on the degree of non-genetic phenotypic inheritance: how closely daughter cells resemble their mother. This paper demonstrates a synergistic relationship between inheritance and genetic diversity in generating population-level behaviors.

Read the paper here: (html, pdf)