Title: Intrusion of Bacterial Quorum-Sensing for Antimicrobial Resistance Mitigation: A Pharmaceutical Perspective
Abstract: Bacteria employ many molecular mechanisms to communicate and adapt the behavior according to their surrounding environment. They produce and sense small diffusible signaling molecules called autoinducers which regulate gene expression involved in virulence, biofilm formation, production of siderophores and protease. This mechanism of communication is referred to as quorum-sensing. The autoinducers are specific to strains and species i.e. Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria use the different signaling molecules to regulate their behavior. In addition, bacteria also produce quorum sensing inhibitors and enzymes to degrade the signaling molecules. In earlier studies, the quorum sensing mutants of pathogenic bacteria were found to be attenuated for virulence and pathogenicity.These naturally occurring strategies to interfere with the quorum sensing led the concept of quorum quenching to be employed in therapeutics to control the microbial diseases. Quorum sensing inhibitors and/ or quenchers are being used as a therapeutic arsenal to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria and in the development of new generation medical devices to prevent biofilm formation on them. This chapter highlights the type of mechanisms employed by bacteria for quorum sensing and the potential use of quorum sensing inhibitors as a successful strategy in the mitigation of antimicrobial resistance.
Publication Year: 2020
Publication Date: 2020-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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