Quorum Sensing System Used as a Tool in Metabolic Engineering
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Updated: Dec 29, 2025

Time-lapse Imaging of Bacterial Swarms and the Collective Stress Response
Published on: May 23, 2020
Chang Ge1, Huakang Sheng1, Xin Chen1
1State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, Chaoyang, 100029, China.
Abstract:
Quorum sensing (QS) is a ubiquitous cell-cell communication mechanism in microbes that coordinates population-level cell behaviors, such as biofilm production, virulence, swarming motility, and bacterial persistence. Efforts to engineer QS systems to take part in metabolic network regulation represent a promising strategy for synthetic biology and pathway engineering. Recently, design, construction, and implementation of QS circuits for programmed control of bacterial phenotypes and metabolic pathways have gained much attention, but have not been reviewed recently. In this article, the architectural organizations and genetic contributions of the naturally occurring QS components to understand the mechanisms are summarized. Then, the most recent progress in application of QS toolkits to develop synthetic networks for novel cell behaviors creation and metabolic pathway engineering is highlighted. The current challenges in large-scale application of these QS circuits in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering fields are discussed and future perspectives for further engineering efforts are provided.
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