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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Time-lapse Imaging of Bacterial Swarms and the Collective Stress Response
Published on: May 23, 2020
Control of bacterial quorum threshold for metabolic homeostasis and cooperativity
Eunhye Goo1,2, Ingyu Hwang1,2
1Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University , Seoul, South Korea.
Importance:
The mechanisms used by various bacteria to determine whether their density is sufficient to meet the QS threshold, how stringently bacterial cells block QS initiation until the QS threshold is reached, and the impacts of low-density bacterial cells encountering conditions that exceed the QS threshold are longstanding gaps in QS research. We demonstrated that translational control of the QS signaling biosynthetic gene creates a stringent QS threshold to maintain metabolic balance at low cell densities. The emergence of non-cooperative cells underlines the critical role of stringent QS modulation in maintaining the integrity of the bacterial QS system, demonstrating that a lack of such control can serve as a selection pressure. The fate of quorum-calling cells exposed to exceeding the QS threshold clarifies QS bacteria evolution in complex ecosystems.
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