Quorum Sensing and Interspecies Interactions in Stenotrophomonas maltophilia

Abstract

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia is a gram-negative bacterium that is widespread in the environment and that has become important in the last years as an emerging opportunistic pathogen. Quorum sensing (QS) is a bacterial cell–cell communication process that involves the production, detection, and response to extracellular signalling molecules called autoinducers. S. maltophilia has a diffusible signal factor (DSF) that controls cell–cell communication and many functions such as motility, extracellular protease production and microcolonies formation in artificial sputum medium. This DSF signalling mediates also interspecies interactions between S. maltophilia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa such as susceptibility to polymixin and its influence on biofilm formation. The traditional approach for the treatment of infectious diseases is to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria using antibiotics. In response to the rise in antibiotic resistance, the development and use of QS inhibition based drugs to attenuate bacterial pathogenicity is now highly required in the microbiological and clinical fields.