Expanding the club: engineering plants to talk to bacteria

Abstract

Studies of population-mediated gene regulation in microorganisms, such as Dictyostelium discoideum and myxobacteria, have demonstrated that single-celled microorganisms can produce chemical signals that enable them to act as a multicellular organism. However, it is the recent explosion of information about N-acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL)-mediated gene regulation in bacteria that has driven a fundamental shift in our thinking about bacteria – not as individual cells, but as multicellular popu-lations that are able to respond to environmental inputs in a concerted manner. AHL-mediated gene regulation 1 Pierson L.S. et al. Homoserine lactone-mediated gene regulation in plant-associated bacteria. Annu. Rev. Phytopathol. 1998; 36: 207-225 Crossref PubMed Scopus (115) Google Scholar , or quorum sensing 2 Fuqua C. et al. Census and consensus in bacterial ecosystems: the LuxR–LuxI family of quorum sensing transcriptional regulators. Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 1996; 50: 727-751 Crossref PubMed Scopus (911) Google Scholar , is the ability of bacteria to sense their population numbers via the production and perception of small diffusible AHL signal molecules. Rupert Fray and colleagues 3 Fray R.G. et al. Plants genetically modified to produce N-acylhomoserine lactones communicate with bacteria. Nat. Biotechnol. 1999; 17: 1017-1020 Crossref PubMed Scopus (107) Google Scholar recently tested the hypothesis that plants can be engineered to produce AHL signals and that the production of these signal molecules alters bacterial perception.