Quorum sensing plays a pivotal role in Pseudomonas aeruginosa's virulence. This paper reviews experimental results on antimicrobial strategies based on quorum sensing inhibition and discusses current targets in the regulatory network that determines P. aeruginosa biofilm formation and virulence. A bioinformatics framework combining literature mining with information from biomedical ontologies a...

In Gram-negative bacteria, quorum sensing is mediated by N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHL) to regulate different biological functions, including production of virulence factors. Quorum quenching refers to the interruption of quorum sensing, and the most attractive way is to degrade the AHL molecules. With the aim of isolating soil bacteria capable of blocking quorum sensing by inactivating AHL, a...

Many common bacterial pathogens utilize quorum sensing to coordinate group behaviors and initiate virulence at high cell densities. The use of small molecules to block quorum sensing provides a means of abrogating pathogenic phenotypes, but many known quorum sensing modulators have limitations, including hydrolytic instability and displaying non-monotonic dose curves (indicative of additional t...

Quorum sensing describes the ability of bacteria to sense their population density and respond by modulating gene expression. In the plant soft-rotting bacteria, such as Erwinia, an arsenal of plant cell wall-degrading enzymes is produced in a cell density-dependent manner, which causes maceration of plant tissue. However, quorum sensing is central not only to controlling the production of such...

We investigate the dynamics of a synthetic genetic repressilator with quorum sensing feedback. In a basic genetic ring oscillator network in which three genes inhibit each other in unidirectional manner, an additional quorum sensing feedback loop stimulates the activity of a chosen gene providing competition between inhibitory and stimulatory activities localized in that gene. Numerical simulat...

Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii are two of the main bacteria responsible for nosocomial infections; both organisms are resistant to several classes of antibiotics making their infections very difficult to treat. Moreover, they possess a remarkable ability to form biofilms, which further enhances their antimicrobial resistance. Both organisms coordinate their formation of biof...

A series of synthetic molecules combining a geranyl backbone with a heterocyclic or oxime head group are quorum-sensing molecules that block the yeast to mycelium transition in the dimorphic fungus Candida albicans. A number of the analogs have an IC50 10 microM, a level of potency essentially identical to the natural quorum sensing signal, the sesquiterpene farnesol. Two of the most potent ana...

The coordination of group behaviors in bacteria is accomplished via the cell-cell signaling process called quorum sensing. Vibrios have historically been models for studying bacterial communication due to the diverse and remarkable behaviors controlled by quorum sensing in these bacteria, including bioluminescence, type III and type VI secretion, biofilm formation, and motility. Here, we discus...

Quorum sensing is a cell-cell communication process that bacteria use to transition between individual and social lifestyles. In vibrios, homologous small RNAs called the Qrr sRNAs function at the center of quorum-sensing pathways. The Qrr sRNAs regulate multiple mRNA targets including those encoding the quorum-sensing regulatory components luxR, luxO, luxM, and aphA. We show that a representat...