Decoding the mystery of how bacteria “talk”: among Gram-negative microorganisms

Tan Wen-Si, Jodi Woan-Fei Law, Vengadesh Letchumanan, Kok-Gan Chan

Research output: Contribution to journalReview ArticleResearchpeer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

To date, microbial diversity is still the least well understood component of biodiversity. Bacteria are the most abundant microorganisms where most species are often found ubiquitous. Microorganisms such as bacteria are diverse in their impacts such as in spreading of infectious diseases or play a valuable role in biotechnological purposes. Hence, it is interesting to gain a look upon the ways where bacteria regulate their daily processes in the environment. Bacteria communicate with each other through extracellular signalling molecules or also known as autoinducers (AIs) that are produced, detected and show response. This process is termed as quorum sensing (QS) which indicates that bacteria do communicate in order to perform various physiological activities. QS enable bacteria to have the advantages that are unattainable as individual bacterial cell. This review emphases on the characteristics of quorum sensing (QS) and its benefits in understanding different kind of bacterial QS-dependent activities. This fundamental insight from QS system will enable us to manage bacterial activities by targeting their communication circuit.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbera0000038
Number of pages7
JournalProgress in Microbes and Molecular Biology
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Communication
  • N-acylhomoserine lactone
  • quorum-sensing
  • signalling molecules

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