Look who's talking: communication and quorum sensing in the bacterial world

By Paul Williams, Klaus Winzer, W. Chan, Miguel Cámara. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2007

817 citations recorded by the source corpus.

For many years bacteria were considered primarily as autonomous unicellular organisms with little capacity for collective behaviour. However, we now appreciate that bacterial cells are in fact, highly communicative. The generic term ‘quorum sensing’ has been adopted to describe the bacterial cell-to-cell communication mechanisms which co-ordinate gene expression usually, but not always, when the population has reached a high cell density. Quorum sensing depends on the synthesis of small molecules (often referred to as pheromones or autoinducers) that diffuse in and out of bacterial cells. As the bacterial population density increases, so does the synthesis of quorum sensing signal molecules, and consequently, their concentration in the external environment rises. Once a critical threshold concentration has been reached, a target sensor kinase or response regulator is activated (or repressed) so facilitating the expression of quorum sensing-dependent genes. Quorum sensing enables a bacterial population to mount a co-operative response that improves access to nutrients or specific environmental niches, promotes collective defence against other competitor prokaryotes or eukaryotic defence mechanisms and facilitates survival through differentiation into morphological forms better able to combat environmental threats. Quorum sensing also crosses the prokaryotic–eukaryotic boundary since quorum sensing-dependent signalling can be exploited or inactivated by both plants and mammals.

Subfields: Genetics, Molecular Biology

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Citations in the corpus

Role of intestinal microbiota and metabolites on gut homeostasis and human diseases (2017, background): “aeruginosa two chemically distinct classes of QS signals are identified to be N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHLs) and 4-hydroxy-2alkylquinolines (HAQs) [84, 85].”
Growth phase-specific release of polyunsaturated aldehydes by the diatom Skeletonema marinoi (2008, background): “For this type of cell to cell communication in bacteria, the term quorum sensing has been established (Fuqua et al., 1994; Williams et al., 2007).”
A volatile organic compound analysis from Arthrobacter agilis identifies dimethylhexadecylamine, an amino-containing lipid modulating bacterial growth and Medicago sativa morphogenesis in vitro (2011, background): “QS acts through the production and detection of autoinducer compounds, including N–acyl-L-homoserine lactones (AHLs) and other molecules produced in a population-density-dependent manner (Williams et al. 2007).”
Quorum sensing, communication and cross-kingdom signalling in the bacterial world. (2007, neutral): “The Yersinia pseudotuberculosis AHL synthase YtbI, for example, directs the synthesis of at least 24 different AHLs, although four compounds predominate (3-oxo-C6-HSL, 3-oxo-C7-HSL, 3-oxo-C8-HSL and C8-HSL) (Ortori et al., 2006).”
Exoplanet Biosignatures: A Review of Remotely Detectable Signs of Life (2017, background): “, 2007; Liu and Nizet, 2009), scavenging of nutrients such as iron (Meyer, 2000), facilitating reactions between cells through the phenomenon of ‘‘quorum sensing’’ (McClean et al., 1997; Williams et al., 2007), protection against grazing through antimicrobial properties (Durán et al.”
Functional characteristics of an endophyte community colonizing rice roots as revealed by metagenomic analysis. (2012, background): “The AI-2 system (which has been commonly found in metagenomes) is known for both gramnegative and gram-positive bacteria, where it acts as a global signal molecule for interspecies communication (Williams et al. 2007).”
Rhizosphere engineering and management for sustainable agriculture (2009, background): “When a certain cell density (quorum) of the pathogen is reached, a threshold NAHL concentration is detected by a sensor protein (reviewed in Whitehead et al. 2001; Miller and Bassler 2001; Williams et al. 2007), which activates the synthesis of maceration enzymes such as cellulase, pectate lyase, et”