PapRIV, a BV-2 microglial cell activating quorum sensing peptide

Quorum Sensing in Microbial Virulence

Cell-to cell communication occurs via a signaling pathway referred to as quorum sensing. There are four main types of these systems according to the chemical nature of signal molecules used by microorganisms to elicit expression of target genes in response to environmental stimuli or need of microbial communities. Type I system acts by using acyl homoserine lactones as signals to trigger the ex...

Trimethyltin-Induced Microglial Activation via NADPH Oxidase and MAPKs Pathway in BV-2 Microglial Cells

Trimethyltin (TMT) is known as a potent neurotoxicant that causes neuronal cell death and neuroinflammation, particularly in the hippocampus. Microglial activation is one of the prominent pathological features of TMT neurotoxicity. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how microglial activation occurs in TMT intoxication. In this study, we aimed to investigate the signaling pathways in TMT-induced m...

Cell Death of Streptococcus mutans Induced by a Quorum-Sensing Peptide

Structure of the Bacillus subtilis quorum-sensing peptide pheromone ComX.

The ComX pheromone is an extracellular signaling molecule that stimulates natural competence in response to crowding in the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. The pheromone is formed by isoprenylation of an inactive precursor peptide, but its precise structure is not known. Here we report the structure of the ComX pheromone, showing that addition of a geranyl group to a tryptophan resid...

Cell-signalling repression in bacterial quorum sensing.

In this paper we expand on two mathematical models for investigating the role of three distinct repression mechanisms within the so-called quorum sensing (QS) cell-signalling process of bacterial colonies growing (1) in liquid cultures and (2) in biofilms. The repression mechanisms studied are (i) reduction of cell signalling molecule (QSM) production by a constitutively produced agent degradin...