The chemotaxis performance of E. coli in a linear concentration gradient of potassium. A. Design diagram of the microfluidic device. The source channel and sink were flowed with 100 mM KCl and motility buffer, respectively. The inlets of KCl, agarose, motility buffer and cells are denoted by (a), (b), (c) and (p), respectively. The outlets are labeled by the corresponding letters with the prime symbol. B. The average CMC of four datasets as a function of time for the wild-type strain (HCB1) under a linear concentration gradient of KCl. The shaded area denotes SEM. C. The cell density profile in the observing channel along the y-axis at the beginning (t = 1 s, green squares) and a steady state (t = 300 s, blue dots). The red solid line is an exponential fit to the data. Error bars denote SEM.