Evidence of Chemical Wave-Electric Field Interaction in Bacterial Cells

Abstract

Charge neutrality is widely assumed in living cells, yet this approximation breaks down in micron-scale bacteria where charge imbalance and spatial confinement are significant. Using Poisson–Nernst–Planck modeling, we show that unequal cation–anion effectiveness and bounded geometry generate extended intracellular diffuse layers and steady electric fields. We demonstrate that such fields couple directly to intracellular chemical waves, focusing on the Min-protein oscillator of Escherichia coli. Electric-field–driven transport skews the dispersion-mode structure, induces mode crossings, and selectively amplifies Turing and Hopf–Turing instabilities over intermediate length scales, constraining the permitted ω–k spectrum and setting optimal wavelengths and modal growth-rate velocities. Experiments in wild-type, anucleate, and antibiotic-treated cells, together with simulations of nucleoid-dependent charge density and field strength, quantitatively validate these predictions and explain observed pattern asymmetries and frequency modulations. Crucially, asymmetric wave–field coupling promotes quasi-periodicity through controlled mode competition, enhancing robustness to noise, cell-size variation, and growth. These findings identify intracellular electric fields as active regulators of biochemical patterning and suggest a general role for wave–field interactions in cellular self-organization.