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Updated: May 13, 2026

Deferred Growth Inhibition Assay to Quantify the Effect of Bacteria-derived Antimicrobials on Competition
Published on: September 3, 2016
Bacterial contact-dependent growth inhibition
Zachary C Ruhe1, David A Low, Christopher S Hayes
1Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9625, USA.
Abstract:
Bacteria cooperate to form multicellular communities and compete against one another for environmental resources. Here, we review recent advances in the understanding of bacterial competition mediated by contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) systems. Different CDI+ bacteria deploy a variety of toxins to inhibit neighboring cells and protect themselves from autoinhibition by producing specific immunity proteins. The genes encoding CDI toxin-immunity protein pairs appear to be exchanged between cdi loci and are often associated with other toxin-delivery systems in diverse bacterial species. CDI also appears to facilitate cooperative behavior between kin, suggesting that these systems may have other roles beyond competition.
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