Different chemicals are produced by bacteria for inter and intra species communication, how do we use these chemicals to our advantage in developing antibiotics?
For the second part of the question, if you could identify a method or molecule that can interfere pathogens' quorum sensing, then those pathogen will lose their infectious abilities.
One can search for inhibitors of quorum sensing, e.g. those which can interfere with functioning of AHLs in gram-negative bacteria. Even analogues of quorum sensing signals can be screened for their antimicrobial efficacy. The model bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum can be very useful in such experiments.
Bhardwaj AK, Vinothkumar K, Rajpara N. Bacterial quorum sensing inhibitors: Attractive alternatives for control of infectious pathogens showing multiple drug resistance. Recent Pat Antiinfect Drug Discov. 2013;8:68-83.
U can refer this paper
Hi, maybe it is a bit off topic, but quorum sensing is already used for wastewater treatment. If you could transfer the used processes to antibiotics, that might be a good thing to start with. See:
Shrout, Joshua D., and Robert Nerenberg. "Monitoring bacterial twitter: does quorum sensing determine the behavior of water and wastewater treatment biofilms?." Environmental science & technology 46.4 (2012): 1995-2005.
Hi Alex,
Another good paper about exploting QS to kill bacteria is in the May/June 2013 issue of mBio (mBio.asm.org).
Kumar et al, 2013. Novel Quorum-Sensing Peptides Mediating Interspecies Bacterial Cell Death. mBio 4 (3) e000314-13. doi:10.1128/mBio00314-13.
Hope this helps and best regards.
Before that we need to answer what is the exact ecological role antibiotics play in their natural environment after their secretion. Whether these molecules themselves play an important role in communication?
Specific QS molecules from one bacteria often act as antagonist to the QS signaling in another. We have invented a LDI-MS technology (US 20130323849 A1) to screen global QS in specific pathogens and disrupt signals using probiotic bacterial QS.
The chemical which are used by bacteria's for Quorum sensing are used as target and try to find inhibitors against those targets which may be later used for antibiotic
I think why QS system could be a potential target is that it is a way to control pathogen's virulence and biofilm production while not necessarily kill the bacteria so that it reduce the possibility of developing drug resistance in the target bacteria. QS inhibitors is one option.
It might possible to use homo logs for auto inducers, which causes increase in there concentration. So that it causes the down regulation of auto inducer genes. It might help in some way ...........................
I've written a pretty nice review that talked about targeting biofilm bacteria, and a significant part of that discussion was targets in the quorum sensing machinery. It's certainly not up-to-the minute anymore, but it is an excellent discussion: http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~phgroup/pdfs/ref37_CurrMedChem_Musk_PDFReprint.pdf
The QS can be a potential target of inhibitor phytochemicals or synthetic compounds. QS inhibitors are able to modify the effect of chemotherapy through blocking acyl-homoserin lactone synthase, other mediators, or second messenger e.g. cyclic-di-GMP resulting in changes in active efflux or diffusion, changes in cell to cell signal transport, secretion of biofilm, swarming, efflux pump systems, PMF, cell adhesion, cohesion etc.
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