Influence of quorum sensing in multiple phenotypes of the bacterial pathogen Chromobacterium violaceum

Abstract

Chromobacterium violaceum is a bacterial pathogen that communicates through quorum sensing (QS), via the C6-homoserine lactone signal (C6-HSL). It is well known that the production of the pigment violacein is controlled by QS in this microorganism, in fact QS-dependent violacein production is widely used as a marker to evaluate the efficiency of potential anti-QS molecules, such as those extracted from plants. In addition to violacein, the production of chitinase is also known to be controlled by QS, but besides those two phenotypes there is a lack of experimental studies aimed to discover additional process controlled by QS in this organism; therefore, in this work the production of exoprotease, aggregation, biofilm formation, swarming motility, H2O2 resistance as well as carbon and nitrogen utilization was determined in the wild-type strain and the QS negative mutant CVO26. Our results indicate that alkaline exoprotease activity is QS controlled in this organism, that QS increases aggregation, biofilm formation, swarming, that may increase H2O2 stress tolerance, and that it may influence the utilization of several carbon and nitrogen sources.