2. Academic Validation
  3. Pyocyanin Restricts Social Cheating in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Pyocyanin Restricts Social Cheating in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

  • Front Microbiol. 2018 Jun 27;9:1348. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.01348.
Paulina Castañeda-Tamez 1,  Jimena Ramírez-Peris 1 2,  Judith Pérez-Velázquez 3 4,  Christina Kuttler 4,  Ammar Jalalimanesh 4 5,  Miguel Á Saucedo-Mora 1,  J Guillermo Jiménez-Cortés 1,  Toshinari Maeda 6,  Yael González 1,  María Tomás 7,  Thomas K Wood 8,  Rodolfo García-Contreras 1
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico.
  • 2 Instituto Nacional de Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz, Mexico City, Mexico.
  • 3 Institute of Computational Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt (GmbH), Neuherberg, Germany.
  • 4 Zentrum Mathematik, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.
  • 5 Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (IRANDOC), Tehran, Iran.
  • 6 Department of Biological Functions Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu, Japan.
  • 7 Department of Microbiology, Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de A Coruña, Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de A Coruña, SERGAS, Universidade da Coruña, A Coruña, Spain.
  • 8 Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, United States.
PMID: 29997585 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.01348
Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) in Pseudomonas aeruginosa coordinates the expression of virulence factors, such as exoproteases and siderophores, that are public goods utilized by the whole population of bacteria, regardless of whether they invested or not in their production. These public goods can be used by QS defective mutants for growth, and since these mutants do not contribute to public goods production, they are considered social cheaters. Pyocyanin is a phenazine that is a toxic, QS-controlled metabolite produced by P. aeruginosa. It is a redox-active compound and promotes the generation of reactive oxygen species; it also possesses Antibacterial properties and increases fitness in competition with other Bacterial species. Since QS-deficient individuals are less able to tolerate oxidative stress, we hypothesized that the pyocyanin produced by the wild-type population could promote selection of functional QS systems in this bacterium. Here, we demonstrate, using competition experiments and mathematical models, that, indeed, pyocyanin increases the fitness of the cooperative QS-proficient individuals and restricts the appearance of social cheaters. In addition, we also show that pyocyanin is able to select QS in Other bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii.

Keywords

oxidative stress; policing; public goods; pyocyanin; quorum sensing (QS); social cheating.

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