Ambroxol interferes with Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing.

The mucolytic agent ambroxol has been reported to interfere with the formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa-derived biofilms in addition to reducing alginate production by undefined mechanisms. Since quorum sensing is a key regulator of virulence and biofilm formation, we examined the effects of ambroxol on P. aeruginosa PAO1 wild-type bacterial clearance rates, adhesion profiles and biofilm formation compared with the quorum sensing-deficient, double-mutant strains DeltalasR DeltarhlR and DeltalasI DeltarhlI. Data presented in this report demonstrated that ambroxol treatment reduced survival rates of the double-mutant strains compared with the wild-type strain in a dose-dependent manner even though the double-mutants had increased adhesion in the presence of ambroxol compared with the wild-type strain. The PAO1 wild-type strain produced a significantly thicker biofilm (21.64+/-0.57 microm) compared with the biofilms produced by the DeltalasR DeltarhlR (7.36+/-0.2 microm) and DeltalasI DeltarhlI (6.62+/-0.31 microm) isolates. Ambroxol treatment reduced biofilm thickness, increased areal porosity, and decreased the average diffusion distance and textual entropy of wild-type and double-mutant strains. However, compared with the double-mutant strains, the changes observed for the wild-type strain were more clearly defined. Finally, ambroxol exhibited significant antagonistic quorum-sensing properties, suggesting that it could be adapted for use clinically in the treatment of cystic fibrosis and to reduce biofilm formation and in the colonisation of indwelling devices.