Work

Decoding Microbial Chatter: Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria

Year: 2005

Type: review

Abstract: Intelligence operations worldwide monitor individuals di-rectly or indirectly linked to terrorist networks for their com-munication activities, collectively described as “chatter. ” Con-siderable effort and resources are devoted to assessing intelligence chatter. A major challenge is to distinguish innoc-uous, everyday discourse from those missives that act to coor-dinate more nefarious activities. Microorganisms also chatter, and our ability to understand the routes, mechanisms, and purposes of these communications may have profound effects on human health, industry, agriculture, and the environment. Bacteria communicate and coordinate their activities through chemical signals that either diffuse through the extracellular environment or remain cell associated. As with the global surveillance of human chatter, research activity focused on microbial communication mechanisms has intensified over re-

Source: Journal of Bacteriology

DOI: 10.1128/jb.187.16.5507-5519.2005

Authors: Karen L. Visick, Clay Fuqua

Institutions: Loyola University Chicago, Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana University

Language: English

Topic: Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences

Awards: Requirements For Bacterial Colonization Of Animal Tissue, Quorum-Sensing and Growth Control in Rhizobium sp. NGR234, Microbial Observatories: Microbial Diversity of Procaryotes in Marine Sponges of the Class Demospongiae