Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 106, Issue 1, Pages 280-285Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810940106
Keywords
biofilm; quorum sensing
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health [GM58213, GM82137, GM18568]
- Fundacion Seneca, Comunidad Auto noma de la Region de Murcia (Spain)
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We report a previously undescribed quorum-sensing mechanism for triggering multicellularity in Bacillus subtilis. B. subtilis forms communities of cells known as biofilms in response to an unknown signal. We discovered that biofilm formation is stimulated by a variety of small molecules produced by bacteria-including the B. subtilis nonribosomal peptide surfactin-that share the ability to induce potassium leakage. Natural products that do not cause potassium leakage failed to induce multicellularity. Small-molecule-induced multicellularity was prevented by the addition of potassium, but not sodium or lithium. Evidence is presented that potassium leakage stimulates the activity of a membrane protein kinase, KinC, which governs the expression of genes involved in biofilm formation. We propose that KinC responds to lowered intracellular potassium concentration and that this is a quorum-sensing mechanism that enables B. subtilis to respond to related and unrelated bacteria.
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