Expression of Quorum Sensing and Virulence Factors Are Interlinked in Pseudomonas aeruginosa: an in vitro Approach

Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) has been shown to be important for the pathogenesis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in number of infections and for the expression of various virulence genes. Although QS has been shown to regulate the expression of virulence factors such as elastase, protease and rhamnolipid but link to others such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or exo-polysaccharide has not been studied in detail yet. Present study investigated the contribution of QS to the phenotypic expression of multiple virulence factors in vitro. Multiple virulence factors were estimated among wild type P. aeruginosa and its isogenic QS mutant strains by standard methods. Results indicated that QS also regulates the expression of LPS, haemolysin, siderophores and polysaccharides in addition to well-known virulence factors such as elastase, protease and rhamnolipids. Role in biofilm formation and motilities was further established. It may be concluded that QS regulates the expression of multiple virulence factors in P. aeruginosa. It also depicts that QS may regulates more than it is speculated. Therefore, role of QS signal molecules can also be explored further for other regulation possibilities, as futuristic drug target for the development of preventive strategies and important virulence factor per se.