A Spatiotemporal Model of Polarity and Spatial Gradient Establishment in Caulobacter crescentus

Bacterial cells have sophisticated intracellular organization of proteins in space and time, which allows for stress response, signal transduction, cell differentiation and morphogenesis. The mechanisms of spatial localization and their contributions to cell development and adaptability are not fully understood. In this work, we use the bacterial model organism, Caulobacter cescentus, to investigate the establishment of polarity and asymmetry. We apply a reaction-diffusion model to simulating the spatiotemporal dynamics of scaffolding proteins PodJ and PopZ, which account for the formation of distinct poles in C. crescentus. Additionally, we use this mathematical model to investigate the nonuniform distribution of key kinase DivJ and phosphatase PleC and figure out their contributions to the spatial gradient of response regulators DivK and CtrA.