Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Microbiol Spectr. 2018 Jul;6(4). doi: 10.1128/microbiolspec.RWR-0017-2018.
Quorum sensing is a vital property of bacteria that enables community-wide coordination of collective behaviors. A key example of such a behavior is biofilm formation, in which groups of bacteria invest in synthesizing a protective, joint extracellular matrix. Quorum sensing involves the production, release, and subsequent detection of extracellular signaling molecules called autoinducers. The architecture of quorum-sensing signal transduction pathways is highly variable among different species of bacteria, but frequently involves posttranscriptional regulation carried out by small regulatory RNA molecules. This review illustrates the diverse roles small -acting regulatory RNAs can play, from constituting a network's core to auxiliary roles in adjusting the rate of autoinducer synthesis, mediating cross talk among different parts of a network, or integrating different regulatory inputs to trigger appropriate changes in gene expression. The emphasis is on describing how the study of small RNA-based regulation in quorum sensing and biofilm formation has uncovered new general properties or expanded our understanding of bacterial riboregulation.
群体感应是细菌的一种重要特性，使群体行为能够在整个社区范围内进行协调。这种行为的一个重要例子是生物膜的形成，其中细菌群体投入合成一种保护性的、共同的细胞外基质。群体感应涉及到细胞外信号分子的产生、释放和随后的检测，这些信号分子被称为自诱导物。群体感应信号转导途径的结构在不同种类的细菌中差异很大，但通常涉及由小的调节 RNA 分子进行的转录后调节。这篇综述说明了小作用调节 RNA 可以发挥的多种作用，从构成网络的核心到在调节自诱导物合成的速度、调节网络不同部分之间的串扰、或整合不同的调节输入以触发适当的基因表达变化等辅助作用。重点是描述群体感应和生物膜形成中小 RNA 调控的研究如何揭示了细菌核糖调控的新的一般特性或扩展了我们的理解。
