Fig. 2.

Oscillations of Frz system components resulting from solving Michaelis–Menten kinetic equations for scheme shown in Fig. 1b. (See Appendix for details). Fractions of active FrzF, methylated FrzCD, and phosphorylated FrzE are shown by solid, dashed, and centered lines, respectively. (a) In the absence of signaling, the oscillation period can be tuned to ≈10 min, the reversal time of isolated myxobacteria cells. (b) A pulse of signaling (burst of the rate of FrzF activation) results in speeding up of the cycle, so that the maximum of FrzE-P occurs earlier (faster reversal). The dotted line shows unperturbed concentration of FrzE-P for comparison. The signaling event happens at t = 10 min, during the rising stage of active FrzF (sensitive period). (c) The pulse of the signaling does not affect the position of FrzE-P maximum. The signaling event happens at t = 7 min, during the decreasing stage of active FrzF. This stage corresponds to refractory period.