Sex pheromones and plasmid transfer in Streptococcus faecalis: a pheromone, cAM373, which is also excreted by Staphylococcus aureus.

Abstract

Recipient strains of Streptococcus faecalis excrete small, peptide sex pheromones which induce donors harboring certain conjugative plasmids to synthesize a proteinaceous adhesin that facilitates the formation of mating aggregates. (For a recent review of this phenomenon, see Ref. 2.) Referred to as “aggregation substance,” the adhesin has been revealed as a unique antigen that uniformly coats the donor cell surface (14,25). Self aggregation of donors also occurs; for this reason the pheromones are also referred to as clumping inducing agents (CIAs). It has been proposed that “aggregation substance” binds specifically to a “binding substance” present on the surface of both donor and recipient cells (6,7).