Team:Aix-Marseille/Quorum Sening Approach

What is Quorum sensing?

The quorum sensing is a mechanism involving chemical compounds that create a line of communication for various bacterium which regulate their behavior in the confined of their population. There are many ways of communications used like peptides, lactones or fatty acids. After reaching a high concentration of this molecules bacteria are enable to detect them and also became enable to change the expressions of specifics genes. This change results to lead a new phenotype in a high population of bacteria. At the opposite Quorum Quenching is to blur Quorum Sensing and therefore stop the communication of bacteria. It is used by procaryote, for example between bacteria population in competition and eucaryote to control pathogenes.

Xylella fastidiosa

Xylella fastidiosa use fatty acids to communicate named DSF for Diffusible Signal factor, there are the 2-cis-tetradecenoïc acid and the 2-cis-hexadecenoïc acid, the particularity of this fatty acids is the 2-cis insaturatuion. The system Rpf is the system of genes impacts by the DSF, it incuced the formation of biofilm.