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Updated: Apr 24, 2026

Anti-virulent Disruption of Pathogenic Biofilms using Engineered Quorum-quenching Lactonases
Published on: January 1, 2016
Quorum quenching is responsible for the underestimated quorum sensing effects in biological wastewater treatment
Xiang-Ning Song1, Yuan-Yuan Cheng1, Wen-Wei Li1
1CAS Key Laboratory of Urban Pollutant Conversion, Department of Chemistry, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Abstract:
Quorum sensing (QS) and quorum quenching (QQ) are two antagonistic processes coexisting in various bacterial communities in bioreactors, e.g., activated sludge for biological wastewater treatment. Although QS signal molecules are detected in activated sludge reactors and known to affect sludge properties and reactor performance, there has been no direct evidence to prove the endogenous existence of QQ effects in activated sludge. In this study, for the first time, acyl homoserine lactones-degrading enzymatic activity, a typical QQ effect, was discovered in activated sludge and found to considerably affect the QS detection results. The coexistence of QS and QQ bacteria in activated sludge was further confirmed by bacterial screening and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis analysis. The method developed in this study could also be used to evaluate QQ activities in bioreactors, and a possible way is provided to tune bioreactor performance through balancing the QS and QQ processes.
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