Quorum sensing mediates gut bacterial communication and host-microbiota interaction

Abstract

Gut bacteria employ quorum sensing (QS) to coordinate their activities and communicate with one another, this process relies on the production, detection, and response to autoinducers, which are extracellular signaling molecules. In addition to synchronizing behavioral activities within the species, QS plays a crucial role in the gut host-microbiota interaction. In this review, an overview of classical QS systems is presented as well as the interspecies communication mediated by QS, and recent advances in the host-microbiota interaction mediated by QS. A greater knowledge of the communication network of gut microbiota is not only an opportunity and a challenge for developing nutritional and therapeutic strategies against bacterial illnesses, but also a means for improving gut health.

Keywords:

• Quorum sensing
• host-microbiota interaction
• bacterial communication
• autoinducers
• homoserine lactone
• nutritional intervention

Acknowledgments

Our profound admiration and respect go to researchers in this field and in our laboratories, for their dedication and hard work. We apologize to scientists whose work is in this filed if their papers are not cited owing to space limitations.

Author contributions

The review was mainly conceived and designed by XM. Literatures were collected and analyzed by YZ. The manuscript was mainly written by YZ, and edited by NM, PT and XM. XM resourced the project. All the authors contributed to, read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31930106 and 31829004), the National Ten-thousand Talents Program of China (23070201), the Henan Province Public Benefit Research Foundation (201300111200-05), the 2115 Talent Development Program of China Agricultural University (1041-00109019), and the 111 Project (B16044).