Bacterial Quorum Sensing Stabilizes Cooperation by Optimizing Growth Strategies.

ABSTRACT: Communication has been suggested as a mechanism to stabilize cooperation. In bacteria, chemical communication, termed quorum sensing (QS), has been hypothesized to fill this role, and extracellular public goods are often induced by QS at high cell densities. Here we show, with the bacterium Vibrio harveyi, that QS provides strong resistance against invasion of a QS defector strain by maximizing the cellular growth rate at low cell densities while achieving maximum productivity through protease upregulation at high cell densities. In contrast, QS mutants that act as defectors or unconditional cooperators maximize either the growth rate or the growth yield, respectively, and thus are less fit than the wild-type QS strain. Our findings provide experimental evidence that regulation mediated by

SUBMITTER: Bruger EL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5086544 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature