Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
mBio. 2018 May 22;9(3):e02331-17. doi: 10.1128/mBio.02331-17.
Many bacteria use a cell-cell communication system called quorum sensing to coordinate population density-dependent changes in behavior. Quorum sensing involves production of and response to diffusible or secreted signals, which can vary substantially across different types of bacteria. In many species, quorum sensing modulates virulence functions and is important for pathogenesis. Over the past half-century, there has been a significant accumulation of knowledge of the molecular mechanisms, signal structures, gene regulons, and behavioral responses associated with quorum-sensing systems in diverse bacteria. More recent studies have focused on understanding quorum sensing in the context of bacterial sociality. Studies of the role of quorum sensing in cooperative and competitive microbial interactions have revealed how quorum sensing coordinates interactions both within a species and between species. Such studies of quorum sensing as a social behavior have relied on the development of "synthetic ecological" models that use nonclonal bacterial populations. In this review, we discuss some of these models and recent advances in understanding how microbes might interact with one another using quorum sensing. The knowledge gained from these lines of investigation has the potential to guide studies of microbial sociality in natural settings and the design of new medicines and therapies to treat bacterial infections.
许多细菌使用一种称为群体感应的细胞间通讯系统来协调行为随种群密度变化的变化。群体感应涉及可扩散或分泌信号的产生和响应，这些信号在不同类型的细菌中差异很大。在许多物种中，群体感应调节毒力功能，对发病机制很重要。在过去的半个世纪中，人们对不同细菌中与群体感应系统相关的分子机制、信号结构、基因调控因子和行为反应有了大量的了解。最近的研究集中在理解群体感应在细菌社会性方面的作用。对群体感应在合作和竞争微生物相互作用中的作用的研究揭示了群体感应如何协调物种内和物种间的相互作用。这种将群体感应作为一种社会行为的研究依赖于使用非克隆细菌群体的“合成生态”模型的发展。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了其中的一些模型，以及最近在理解微生物如何通过群体感应相互作用方面的进展。从这些研究中获得的知识有可能指导对自然环境中微生物社会性的研究，以及设计新的药物和疗法来治疗细菌感染。
