177
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
H. Panwar et al. (eds.), Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 46, Sustainable
Agriculture Reviews 46, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53024-2_8
Chapter 8
Intrusion of Bacterial Quorum-Sensing
for Antimicrobial Resistance Mitigation:
A Pharmaceutical Perspective
Sandeep Kumar, Shruti Shandilya, and Kumar Siddharth Singh
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.
Keywords Quorum-sensing · Resistance · Antimicrobials · Auto-inducers
S. Kumar (*)
ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India
S. Shandilya
University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
K. S. Singh
National Centre for Microbial Resource – National Centre for Cell Science,
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Structure and Function of Proteins, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research,
Braunschweig, Germany
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
H. Panwar et al. (eds.), Sustainable Agriculture Reviews 46, Sustainable
Agriculture Reviews 46, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53024-2_8
Chapter 8
Intrusion of Bacterial Quorum-Sensing
for Antimicrobial Resistance Mitigation:
A Pharmaceutical Perspective
Sandeep Kumar, Shruti Shandilya, and Kumar Siddharth Singh
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.
Keywords Quorum-sensing · Resistance · Antimicrobials · Auto-inducers
S. Kumar (*)
ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India
S. Shandilya
University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
K. S. Singh
National Centre for Microbial Resource – National Centre for Cell Science,
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Structure and Function of Proteins, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research,
Braunschweig, Germany