ArticleNature communications2022
Frequency modulation of a bacterial quorum sensing response.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Autoinducer 2 as a universal language in microbial consortia: decoding molecular mechanisms, ecological impacts, and application.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Single-cell phenotypic heterogeneity shapes quorum signaling dynamics in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.Nature communications · 2026Article
- CHASE-independent cytokinin perception triggers 3',5'-cAMP signaling inJournal of bacteriology · 2026Article
- Engineering Allosteric Transcription Factor-Based Biosensors: Advances and Prospects for Modern Food Contaminant Monitoring.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Harnessing eCISs for precision phytomicrobiome engineering and biocontrol.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- The acquisition of additional control over quorum sensing regulation reduces the variability of final cell density in Burkholderia.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Engineering plant holobionts for climate-resilient agriculture.The ISME journal · 2025Review
- Light-emitting plants development by inoculating of Vibrio campbellii RMT1 on the rhizospheric zone of Aglaonema cochinchinense.Photochemical & photobiological sciences : Official journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology · 2024Article
- Citrate cross-feeding bymBio · 2024Article
- A MoClo-Compatible Toolbox of ECF Sigma Factor-Based Regulatory Switches for Proteobacterial Chassis.Biodesign research · 2024Article
- RsaM: a unique dominant regulator of AHL quorum sensing in bacteria.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2023Article
- Quorum sensing going wild.iScience · 2023Review
- Quorum sensing as a mechanism to harness the wisdom of the crowds.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Navigating Environmental Transitions: the Role of Phenotypic Variation in Bacterial Responses.mBio · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In quorum sensing, bacteria secrete or release small molecules into the environment that, once they reach a certain threshold, trigger a behavioural change in the population. As the concentration of these so-called autoinducers is supposed to reflect population density, they were originally assumed to be continuously produced by all cells in a population. However, here we show that in the α-proteobacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti expression of the autoinducer synthase gene is realized in asynchronous stochastic pulses that result from scarcity and, presumably, low binding affinity of the key activator. Physiological cues modulate pulse frequency, and pulse frequency in turn modulates the velocity with which autoinducer levels in the environment reach the threshold to trigger the quorum sensing response. We therefore propose that frequency-modulated pulsing in S. meliloti represents the molecular mechanism for a collective decision-making process in which each cell's physiological state and need for behavioural adaptation is encoded in the pulse frequency with which it expresses the autoinducer synthase gene; the pulse frequencies of all members of the population are then integrated in the common pool of autoinducers, and only once this vote crosses the threshold, the response behaviour is initiated.
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