Linked Life Data

19230668

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/19230668

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
4
pubmed:dateCreated
2009-2-26
pubmed:abstractText
The ability of pathogenic bacteria to exploit their hosts depends upon various virulence factors, released in response to the concentration of small autoinducer molecules that are also released by the bacteria [1-5]. In vitro experiments suggest that autoinducer molecules are signals used to coordinate cooperative behaviors and that this process of quorum sensing (QS) can be exploited by individual cells that avoid the cost of either producing or responding to signal [6, 7]. However, whether QS is an exploitable social trait in vivo, and the implications for the evolution of virulence [5, 8-10], remains untested. We show that in mixed infections of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, containing quorum-sensing bacteria and mutants that do not respond to signal, virulence in an animal (mouse) model is reduced relative to that of an infection containing no mutants. We show that this is because mutants act as cheats, exploiting the cooperative production of signal and virulence factors by others, and hence increase in frequency. This supports the idea that the invasion of QS mutants in infections of humans [11-13] is due to their social fitness consequences [6, 7, 14] and predicts that increased strain diversity will select for lower virulence.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Feb
pubmed:issn
1879-0445
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:day
24
pubmed:volume
19
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
341-5
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2009
pubmed:articleTitle
Quorum sensing and the social evolution of bacterial virulence.
pubmed:affiliation
Department of Surgery, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, 79430, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't