Deconvoluting Interspecies Bacterial Communication

摘要

Our understanding of the complexity of bacterial behavior has deepened considerably over the last few decades. Once thought to be simple, single-celled organisms, bacteria have shown an uncanny ability to make community-based decisions in response to diffusible signals. One of the most well known of these behaviors is a process termed quorum sensing (QS), in which bacteria alter their gene expression based upon population density. There are two types of QS that can occur: intraspecies and interspecies communication. In Gram-negative bacteria, intraspecies communication is typically achieved through the use of acyl homoserine lactone derivatives, while in Gram-positive bacteria intraspecies communication is achieved using autoinducing peptides. Given that bacteria rarely exist as single species communities, one fundamental question is the identity of the signal that bacteria employ to sense and respond to the presence of other bacterial species (interspecies communication).