<em>luxS</em> Mutant Regulation: Quorum Sensing Impairment or Methylation Disorder?

Abstract

AI-2–mediated quorum sensing has been identified in various bacteria, including both Gram-negative and Gram-positive species, and numerous phenotypes have been reported to be regulated by this mechanism, using the <em>luxS</em>-mutant strain. But the AI-2 production process confused this regulatory function; some considered this regulation as the result of a metabolic change, which refers to an important metabolic cycle named activated methyl cycle (AMC), caused by<em> luxS</em>-mutant simultaneously with the defect of AI-2. Herein we hypothesized that the quorum sensing system—not the metabolic aspect—is responsible for such a regulatory function. In this study, we constructed plasmids infused with<em> sahH</em> and induced protein expression in the <em>luxS</em>-mutant strain to make the quorum-sensing system and metabolic system independent. The biofilm-related genes were investigated by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the results demonstrated that the quorum-sensing completed strain restored the gene expression of the defective strain, but the metabolically completed one did not. This evidence supported our hypothesis that the autoinducer-2-mediated, quorum-sensing system, not the AMC, was responsible for <em>luxS</em> mutant regulation.

Keywords

• quorum sensing
• AI-2
• &lt;em&gt;luxS&lt;/em&gt;
• &lt;em&gt; sahH&lt;/em&gt;