Quorum sensing as a promising tool for enhancing the performance of bioelectrochemical systems: a review

Climate change and water pollution are now critical global challenges due to their significant impact on environmental sustainability. Bioelectrochemical systems have emerged as an alternative to address these issues, treating wastewater while generating electricity in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. However, scale-up and commercialization have been limited by several factors, including high cost, long start-up times, and insufficient power generation. In recent years, the manipulation of the quorum sensing system has gained attention as a potential solution to improve power generation and reduce start-up times. Quorum sensing is a type of bacterial cell-to-cell communication in which bacteria produce and release chemical molecules or autoinducers to regulate their gene expression in response to cell population density, thereby controlling various microbial features. In this review, we summarize the efforts that have been made to improve the performance of different bioelectrochemical systems by manipulating the quorum sensing circuit of the microorganisms that drive these systems and we critically examine the different mechanisms by which quorum sensing could affect bioelectrochemical system's performance. Focusing on quorum sensing type 1, the most common quorum sensing circuit in Gram-negative bacteria, we categorize the different laboratory-scale approaches that have been used to understand these strategies, their gaps, and future research needs.