Heckler Ilana, Boon Elizabeth M
Department of Chemistry, Institute of Chemical Biology & Drug Discovery, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, United States.
Front Microbiol. 2019 Sep 24;10:2174. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02174. eCollection 2019.
The emerging threat of drug resistant bacteria has prompted the investigation into bacterial signaling pathways responsible for pathogenesis. One such mechanism by which bacteria regulate their physiology during infection of a host is through a process known as quorum sensing (QS). Bacteria use QS to regulate community-wide gene expression in response to changes in population density. In order to sense these changes in population density, bacteria produce, secrete and detect small molecules called autoinducers. The most common signals detected by Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria are acylated homoserine lactones and autoinducing peptides (AIPs), respectively. However, increasing evidence has supported a role for the small molecule nitric oxide (NO) in influencing QS-mediated group behaviors like bioluminescence, biofilm production, and virulence. In this review, we discuss three bacteria that have an established role for NO in influencing bacterial physiology through QS circuits. In two species, NO has been shown to affect QS pathways upon coordination of hemoprotein sensors. Further, NO has been demonstrated to serve a protective role against staphylococcal pneumonia through S-nitrosylation of a QS regulator of virulence.
耐药细菌的新威胁促使人们对导致发病机制的细菌信号通路展开研究。细菌在宿主感染期间调节其生理机能的一种机制是通过一种称为群体感应（QS）的过程。细菌利用群体感应来响应种群密度的变化调节全群体的基因表达。为了感知种群密度的这些变化，细菌产生、分泌并检测称为自诱导物的小分子。革兰氏阴性菌和革兰氏阳性菌检测到的最常见信号分别是酰化高丝氨酸内酯和自诱导肽（AIPs）。然而，越来越多的证据支持小分子一氧化氮（NO）在影响群体感应介导的群体行为（如生物发光、生物膜形成和毒力）方面发挥作用。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了三种细菌，它们在通过群体感应回路影响细菌生理机能方面，NO已被证实发挥了既定作用。在两个物种中，已表明NO在血色素传感器的协同作用下影响群体感应途径。此外，通过对一种毒力群体感应调节因子进行S-亚硝基化，已证明NO对葡萄球菌肺炎起到保护作用。
