ArticleThe ISME journal2016
Quorum sensing protects bacterial co-operation from exploitation by cheats.
Article in The ISME journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Biofilm state transitions: quorum sensing inhibition and network destabilization.Applied microbiology and biotechnology · 2026Review
- Exploring cooperation among social pathogens: a computational perspective.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Decoding the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of bacterial virulence gene expression using single-cell approaches.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Population-Level Dynamics and Community-Mediated Resistance to Antimicrobial Peptides.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- QSCNAS: A platform for quorum sensing and quenching bacteria analysis in global wastewater treatment plants.iMeta · 2025Article
- Co-regulation of cooperative and private traits by PsdR inEvolution letters · 2025Article
- Quorum Sensing Coordinates Carbon and Nitrogen Metabolism to Optimize Public Goods Production in Pseudomonas fluorescens 2P24.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- A novel decomposer-exploiter interaction framework of plant residue microbial decomposition.Genome biology · 2025Article
- Cyanuric acid in Paramecium secretions is an efficient quorum sensing inducer.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Cooperative environmental engineering via biofilm formation can stabilize consumer-resource systems.PloS one · 2025Article
- From single cells to communities: Mathematical perspectives on bacterial quorum sensing.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025Review
- Experimental evolution of yeast shows that public-goods upregulation can evolve despite challenges from exploitative non-producers.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Trojan horselike T6SS effector TepC mediates both interference competition and exploitative competition.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Putting theory to the test: An integrated computational/experimental chemostat model of the tragedy of the commons.PloS one · 2024Article
- The dynamic response of quorum sensing to density is robust to signal supplementation and individual signal synthase knockouts.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2023Article
- A toxin-mediated policing system ineLife · 2023Article
- Allopatric divergence of cooperators confers cheating resistance and limits effects of a defector mutation.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Evolution-proof inhibitors of public good cooperation: a screening strategy inspired by social evolution theory.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2022Article
- Antibiotics Drive Expansion of Rare Pathogens in a Chronic Infection Microbiome Model.mSphere · 2022Article
- Cheater suppression and stochastic clearance through quorum sensing.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell-cell communication system found in many bacterial species, commonly controlling secreted co-operative traits, including extracellular digestive enzymes. We show that the canonical QS regulatory architecture allows bacteria to sense the genotypic composition of high-density populations, and limit co-operative investments to social environments enriched for co-operators. Using high-density populations of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa we map per-capita signal and co-operative enzyme investment in the wild type as a function of the frequency of non-responder cheats. We demonstrate mathematically and experimentally that the observed response rule of 'co-operate when surrounded by co-operators' allows bacteria to match their investment in co-operation to the composition of the group, therefore allowing the maintenance of co-operation at lower levels of population structuring (that is, lower relatedness). Similar behavioural responses have been described in vertebrates under the banner of 'generalised reciprocity'. Our results suggest that mechanisms of reciprocity are not confined to taxa with advanced cognition, and can be implemented at the cellular level via positive feedback circuits.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.