Bioinspired design of Ca²⁺-induced artificial signal transduction systems: ON/OFF emitting bacteria and excimer-FRET...

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...

Quorum sensing is a mechanism of bacterial communication that enables coordinated gene expression in response to changes in population density. This facilitates collective behaviors that enhance survival, resource acquisition, and ecological adaptation. This process relies on small signaling molecules called autoinducers that accumulate as bacterial populations grow. When a critical threshold concentration of autoinducers is reached, bacterial cells collectively modify gene expression,...

Microbial biosensors are analytical devices that utilize living microbes to detect specific substances through measurable signals. These devices consist of two main components: biosensing organisms and signal-transducing elements. Biosensing organisms, such as Escherichia coli or Saccharomyces cerevisiae, are typically housed in multiwell plates connected to transducers, enabling rapid, real-time detection of target analytes.Signal Generation MechanismWhen a target analyte—such as...

Bacteria and archaea are susceptible to viral infections just like eukaryotes; therefore, they have developed a unique adaptive immune system to protect themselves. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats and CRISPR-associated proteins (CRISPR-Cas) are present in more than 45% of known bacteria and 90% of known archaea.
The CRISPR-Cas system stores a copy of foreign DNA in the host genome and uses it to identify the foreign DNA upon reinfection. CRISPR-Cas has three different...