期刊
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
卷 6, 期 -, 页码 -出版社
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.01176
关键词
quorum-sensing; peptide pheromone; persister cells; bacterial suicide; Streptococcus mutans; stress response; phenotypic heterogeneity
类别
资金
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [MOP-93555]
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) [RGPIN 355968]
- Canada Research Chair
Bacteria are considered social organisms able to communicate with one another using small hormone-like molecules (pheromones) in a process called quorum-sensing (QS). These signaling molecules increase in concentration as a function of bacterial cell density. For most human pathogens, QS is critical for virulence and biofilm formation, and the opportunity to interfere with bacterial QS could provide a sophisticated means for manipulating the composition of pathogenic biofilms, and possibly eradicating the infection. Streptococcus mutans is a well-characterized resident of the dental plaque biofilm, and is the major pathogen of dental caries (cavities). In S. mutans, its CSP QS signaling peptide does not act as a classical QS signal by accumulating passively in proportion to cell density. In fact, particular stresses such as those encountered in the oral cavity, induce the production of the CSP pheromone, suggesting that the pheromone most probably functions as a stress-inducible alarmone by triggering the signaling to the bacterial population to initiate an adaptive response that results in different phenotypic outcomes. This mini-review discusses two different CSP-induced phenotypes, bacterial suicide and dormancy, and the underlying mechanisms by which S. mutans utilizes the same QS signaling peptide to regulate two opposite phenotypes.
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