Logic of two antagonizing intra-species quorum sensing systems in bacteria

Prajapat, Mahendra Kumar and Saini, Supreet (2018) Logic of two antagonizing intra-species quorum sensing systems in bacteria. In: BIOSYSTEMS, 165 . pp. 88-98.

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Abstract

Bacteria release signaling molecules into the surrounding environment and sense them when present in their proximity. Using this strategy, a cell estimates the number of neighbors in its surrounding. Upon sensing a critical number of individuals, bacteria coordinate a number of cellular processes. This density-dependent control of gene expression and physiology is called quorum sensing (QS). Quorum sensing controls a wide variety of functions in bacteria, including those related to motility, growth, virulence etc. Quorum sensing has been widely observed in bacteria while the individuals of the same species or different species compete and cooperate each other. Interestingly, many species possess more than one QS system (intra-species) and these QS systems interact each other to perform quorum sensing. Thus, several logical arrangements can be possible based on the interaction among intra-species QS systems - parallel, series, antagonizing, and agonizing. In this work, we perform simulations to understand the logic of interaction between two antagonizing intra-species QS systems. In such an interaction, one QS system gets fully expressed and the other only gets partially expressed. This is found to be dictated by the interplay between autoinducer's diffusivity and antagonizing strength. In addition, we speculate an important role of the intracellular regulators (eg. LuxR) in maintaining the uniform response among the individual cells from the different localities. We also expect the interplay between the autoinducer's diffusivity and distribution of cells in fine tuning the collective response. Interestingly, in a localized niche with a heterogeneous cell distribution, the cells are expected to perform a global quorum sensing via fully expressed QS system and a local quorum sensing via partially expressed QS system. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	BIOSYSTEMS
Publisher:	ELSEVIER SCI LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, OXON, ENGLAND
Additional Information:	Copy right for this article belong to ELSEVIER SCI LTD, THE BOULEVARD, LANGFORD LANE, KIDLINGTON, OXFORD OX5 1GB, OXON, ENGLAND
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Chemical Engineering
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2018 20:09
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2018 20:09
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/59589

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