Legionella spp. All Ears? The Broad Occurrence of Quorum Sensing Elements outside Legionella pneumophila.

ABSTRACT: Legionella spp. are ubiquitous bacteria principally found in water networks and ∼20 species are implicated in Legionnaire's disease. Among them, Legionella pneumophila is an intracellular pathogen of environmental protozoa, responsible for ∼90% of cases in the world. Legionella pneumophila regulates in part its virulence by a quorum sensing system named "Legionella quorum sensing," composed of a signal synthase LqsA, two histidine kinase membrane receptors LqsS and LqsT and a cytoplasmic receptor LqsR. To date, this communication system was only found in L. pneumophila. Here, we investigated 58 Legionella genomes to determine the presence of a lqs cluster or homologous receptors using TBlastN. This analysis revealed three categories of species: 19 harbored a complete lqs cluster, 20 did no

SUBMITTER: Herran B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8023197 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature