Single-cell Study of Bacterial Signaling in Quorum Sensing

From Q-bio

Quorum sensing is a process that bacteria communicate with one another by signaling molecules called autoinducers. To investigate quorum-sensing response of single cell and uncover the mystery of integration of multiple autoinducers, we constructed mutant strains with fluorescent protein reporters and applied quantitative microscopy. We quantified cell-to-cell variation in response to various levels of homogeneous autoinducer concentrations and found that cells can tell more than just low and high cell densities. We obtained dose response features of two autoinducer sensing pathways when they present alone or together. Our results suggest that two autoinducers are integrated additively and there is no discrimination of the two distinct autoinducers.