ArticlePLoS genetics2016
Pneumococcal Competence Coordination Relies on a Cell-Contact Sensing Mechanism.
Article in PLoS genetics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed.
- A synopsis of competence-regulated virulence inVirulence · 2026Review
- Article
- A toxin/antitoxin system targeting the replication sliding-clamp induces competence in Streptococcus pneumoniae.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Deciphering the Regulatory Role and Molecular Interactions That Drive the Competence Regulon Quorum Sensing Circuitry inBiochemistry · 2025Article
- Transient inhibition of cell division in competent pneumococcal cells results from deceleration of the septal peptidoglycan complex.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Pneumococcal competence is a populational health sensor driving multilevel heterogeneity in response to antibiotics.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Time-resolved RNA-seq analysis to unravel theMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Noncanonical Streptococcus sanguinis ComCDE circuitry integrates environmental cues in transformation outcome decision.Cell chemical biology · 2024Article
- Diverse regulatory pathways modulate bet hedging of competence induction in epigenetically-differentiated phase variants of Streptococcus pneumoniae.Nucleic acids research · 2023Article
- Fever-like temperature bursts promote competence development via an HtrA-dependent pathway in Streptococcus pneumoniae.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- The quorum sensing com system regulates pneumococcal colonisation and invasive disease in a pseudo-stratified airway tissue model.Microbiological research · 2023Article
- Investigating theMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2022Article
- Pharmacological Evaluation of Synthetic Dominant-Negative Peptides Derived from the Competence-Stimulating Peptide ofACS pharmacology & translational science · 2022Article
- Article
- Competence-Stimulating-Peptide-Dependent Localized Cell Death and Extracellular DNA Production in Streptococcus mutans Biofilms.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2020Article
- The pneumococcal social network.PLoS pathogens · 2020Review
- Article
- Article
- Harnessing the Potential of Killers and Altruists within the Microbial Community: A Possible Alternative to Antibiotic Therapy?Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2019Review
- DprA-Dependent Exit from the Competent State Regulates Multifaceted Streptococcus pneumoniae Virulence.Infection and immunity · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bacteria have evolved various inducible genetic programs to face many types of stress that challenge their growth and survival. Competence is one such program. It enables genetic transformation, a major horizontal gene transfer process. Competence development in liquid cultures of Streptococcus pneumoniae is synchronized within the whole cell population. This collective behavior is known to depend on an exported signaling Competence Stimulating Peptide (CSP), whose action generates a positive feedback loop. However, it is unclear how this CSP-dependent population switch is coordinated. By monitoring spontaneous competence development in real time during growth of four distinct pneumococcal lineages, we have found that competence shift in the population relies on a self-activated cell fraction that arises via a growth time-dependent mechanism. We demonstrate that CSP remains bound to cells during this event, and conclude that the rate of competence development corresponds to the propagation of competence by contact between activated and quiescent cells. We validated this two-step cell-contact sensing mechanism by measuring competence development during co-cultivation of strains with altered capacity to produce or respond to CSP. Finally, we found that the membrane protein ComD retains the CSP, limiting its free diffusion in the medium. We propose that competence initiator cells originate stochastically in response to stress, to form a distinct subpopulation that then transmits the CSP by cell-cell contact.
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