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Bacterial Signaling

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Bacterial signaling can occur within bacteria (intracellular) or between bacteria (intercellular). At times, a group of bacteria behaves like a community. To achieve this, they engage in quorum sensing, the perception of higher cell density that causes changes in gene expression. Quorum sensing involves both extracellular and intracellular signaling. The signaling cascade starts with a molecule called an autoinducer (AI). Individual bacteria produce AIs that move out of the bacterial cell...

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Updated: Mar 24, 2026

Time-lapse Imaging of Bacterial Swarms and the Collective Stress Response

Time-lapse Imaging of Bacterial Swarms and the Collective Stress Response

Published on: May 23, 2020

Social Evolution Selects for Redundancy in Bacterial Quorum Sensing.

Eran Even-Tov¹, Shira Omer Bendori¹, Julie Valastyan²

¹Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.

|March 2, 2016

Summary

Bacteria use quorum sensing for communication, but multiple systems offer no advantage in clonal populations. A facultative cheating mechanism explains the evolution of complex bacterial signaling networks.

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Area of Science:

Microbiology
Evolutionary Biology
Systems Biology

Background:

Bacteria utilize quorum sensing (QS) for cell-to-cell communication to coordinate group behaviors.
QS systems rely on signal molecules and receptors, with multiple QS systems often regulating the same behaviors in bacteria.
The evolutionary advantage of redundant QS network structures remains unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the potential benefits and evolutionary drivers of multiple quorum sensing systems in bacteria.
To explore the role of a facultative cheating mechanism in the accumulation of QS systems.
To identify molecular network design criteria facilitating advantages from QS system complexity.

Main Methods:

Combined computational modeling with experimental analysis.
Studied quorum sensing networks in Bacillus subtilis and Vibrio harveyi.
Analyzed the dynamics of strains with differing numbers of QS systems.

Main Results:

Accumulation of multiple QS systems may be driven by a facultative cheating mechanism.
A strain with an additional QS system can exploit its ancestor with fewer systems.
This advantage persists even when the strain with more QS systems becomes fixed in the population.
Identified specific molecular network design criteria enabling this advantage.

Conclusions:

Increased complexity in bacterial social signaling circuits can evolve without conferring an adaptive advantage in a clonal population.
Facultative cheating provides a plausible explanation for the evolution of redundant QS systems.
The findings shed light on the evolution of social behaviors and network complexity in microbial communities.