Abstract
Quorum sensing (QS) promotes in situ extracellular enzyme (EE) activity via the exogenous signal N-acylhomoserine lactone (AHL), which facilitates marine particle degradation, but the species that engage in this regulatory mechanism remain unclear. Here, we obtained AHL-producing and AHL-degrading strains from marine particles. The strain Ruegeria mobilis Rm01 of the Roseobacter group (RBG), which was capable of both AHL producing and degrading, was chosen to represent these strains. We demonstrated that Rm01 possessed a complex QS network comprising AHL-based QS and quorum quenching (QQ) systems and autoinducer-2 (AI-2) perception system. Rm01 was able to respond to multiple exogenous QS signals through the QS network. By applying self-generated AHLs and non-self-generated AHLs and AI-2 QS signal molecules, we modulated biofilm formation and lipase production in Rm01, which reflected the coordination of bacterial metabolism with that of other species via eavesdropping on exogenous QS signals. These results suggest that R. mobilis might be one of the participators that could regulate EE activities by responding to QS signals in marine particles.
Highlights
Marine particles are typically derived from organic polymers, phytoplankton, bacteria, fecal pellets, mineral materials, and other suspended matter characteristic of a given water mass (Silver and Alldredge, 1981)
Since gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) analyses of acylhomoserine lactone (AHL) cannot be conducted on R/V “Dong Fang Hong 2”, the AHL 3OC8-HSL, which was previously identified in marine particles (Hmelo et al, 2011), was applied as the exogenous AHL
We extended our investigation of Quorum sensing (QS)-regulated marine particle degradation by applying amendment experiments in situ and in vitro
Summary
Marine particles are typically derived from organic polymers, phytoplankton, bacteria, fecal pellets, mineral materials, and other suspended matter characteristic of a given water mass (Silver and Alldredge, 1981). They are reservoir for numerous elements and compounds, such as trace metals, C, N, protein, carbohydrate and lipid (Alldredge, 1979), and are responsible for the delivery of the surface organic matter to the seafloor (Alldredge and Silver, 1988). Bacterial abundance and cell-specific EE activity are much higher in marine particles than in ambient seawater (Smith et al, 1992), which indicates the activation of EE production. Studies investigating the regulatory mechanisms of bacterial EE production in marine particles are limited
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