Impacts of quorum sensing on microbial metabolism and human health

Abstract

Bacteria were considered to be lonely 'mutes' for hundreds of years. However, recently it was found that bacteria usually coordinate their behaviors at the population level by producing (speaking), sensing (listening), and responding to small signal molecules. This so-called quorum sensing (QS) regulation enables bacteria to live in a 'society' with cell-cell communication and controls many important bacterial behaviors. In this chapter, QS systems and their signal molecules for Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria are introduced. Most interestingly, QS regulates the important bacterial behaviors such as metabolism and pathogenesis. QS-regulated microbial metabolism includes antibiotic synthesis, pollutant biodegradation, and bioenergy production, which are very relevant to human health. QS is also well-known for its involvement in bacterial pathogenesis, such as iin nfections by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Novel disease diagnosis strategies and antimicrobial agents have also been developed based on QS regulation on bacterial infections. In addition, to meet the requirements for the detection/quantification of QS signaling molecules for research and application, different biosensors have been constructed, which will also be reviewed here. QS regulation is essential to bacterial survival and important to human health. A better understanding of QS could lead better control/manipulation of bacteria, thus making them more helpful to people. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.