Quorum sensing peptides mediating interspecies bacterial cell death as a novel class of antimicrobial agents.

Quorum sensing peptides mediating interspecies bacterial cell death as a novel class of antimicrobial agents. Curr Opin Microbiol. 2014 Sep 19;21C:22-27 Authors: Kumar S, Engelberg-Kulka H Abstract mazEF is a toxin-antitoxin stress-induced module which is abundant on the chromosome of most bacteria including pathogens and most extensively studied in Escherichia coli. E. coli mazEF mediated cell death is a population phenomenon requiring the quorum-sensing (QS) 'Extracellular Death Factor' (EDF), the E. coli peptide NNWNN. E. coli mazEF-mediated cell death can also be triggered by different QS peptides secreted by the Gram positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis and the Gram negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Thus, the different EDFs belong to a family of QS peptides that mediates interspecies cell death. We suggest that members of the EDF family may become the basis for a novel class of antimicrobial agents to trigger death from outside the bacterial cells. PMID: 25244032 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Current Opinion in Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: Curr Opin Microbiol Source Type: research