ArticleNature microbiology2025
Bacteria use exogenous peptidoglycan as a danger signal to trigger biofilm formation.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Synergistic eradication of NDM-1Materials today. Bio · 2026Article
- Activation of the antibiotic resistance factor WhiB7 can stimulate aggregate biofilm formation in stationary phaseJournal of bacteriology · 2026Article
- Mechanism of persister formation in response to nitrogen starvation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Copper-driven mutualism ofMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
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- Tertiary alkylamine-functionalized polyaspartamides with potent antibacterial activity.Bioactive materials · 2026Article
- Targeted elimination of Staphylococcus aureus mastitis infections with synthetic phage-based CRISPR-Cas delivery systems.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2026Article
- Antiparallel stacking of Csu pili drives Acinetobacter baumannii 3D biofilm assembly.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Cross-scale design of abiotic-biotic interfaces for semi-artificial photosynthesis.Chemical science · 2026Review
- A quorum-sensing molecule fromProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Curcumin-mediated photodynamic inactivation ofCurrent research in food science · 2026Article
- Phage endolysins as alternative antimicrobials: mechanisms, clinical progress, and emerging resistance frameworks.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Host niche-specific challenges hindering the treatment of polymicrobial infections.Journal of bacteriology · 2025Review
- Complementary killing activities ofAntimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2025Article
- Coupling tRNAGly gene redundancy with staphylococcal cell wall integrity, antibiotic susceptibility, and virulence potential.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- Direct Quantification of Protein-Protein Interactions in Living Bacterial Cells.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- d-Histidine inhibitsJournal of oral microbiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
For any organism, survival is enhanced by the ability to sense and respond to threats in advance. For bacteria, danger sensing among kin cells has been observed, but the presence or impacts of general danger signals are poorly understood. Here we show that different bacterial species use exogenous peptidoglycan fragments, which are released by nearby kin or non-kin cell lysis, as a general danger signal. Using microscopy and gene expression profiling of Vibrio cholerae, we find that even brief signal exposure results in a regulatory response that causes three-dimensional biofilm formation, which protects cells from a broad range of stresses, including bacteriophage predation. A diverse set of species (Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis) also respond to exogenous peptidoglycan by forming biofilms. As peptidoglycan from different Gram-negative and Gram-positive species triggered three-dimensional biofilm formation, we propose that this danger signal and danger response are conserved among bacteria.
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Registered trials
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