Interpopulation Signaling via N-Acyl-Homoserine Lactones among Bacteria in the Wheat Rhizosphere
Open Access
- 1 November 1998
- journal article
- Published by Scientific Societies in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions®
- Vol. 11 (11), 1078-1084
- https://doi.org/10.1094/mpmi.1998.11.11.1078
Abstract
The biological control bacterium Pseudomonas aureofaciens 30-84 utilizes an N-acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL) signal molecule to control phenazine antibiotic production in the wheat rhizosphere (D. W. Wood and L. S. Pierson III, Gene 168:49-53, 1996). In this study, we demonstrate that naturally co-existing, non-isogenic bacterial populations interact with strain 30-84 at the level of gene expression via the exchange of diffusible signals on wheat roots. Wheat plants from three geographic locations were used to generate a random library of 700 rhizobacterial isolates. Roughly 8% of the isolates from each location restored phenazine gene expression to an AHL-deficient strain of 30-84 in vitro. Five of these isolates were further tested for their ability to influence gene expression of an AHL-deficient reporter of strain 30-84 on wheat roots. All five, isolated from different geographic locations, restored phenazine gene expression by the reporter to wild-type levels. This suggests that in vitro assays can identify bacterial isolates with the potential to influence phenazine expression in strain 30-84 via AHLs on wheat roots. The occurrence of such strains in all fields sampled suggests that AHL-mediated communication is a common occurrence in the wheat rhizosphere.Keywords
This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit:
- HOMOSERINE LACTONE-MEDIATED GENE REGULATION IN PLANT-ASSOCIATED BACTERIAAnnual Review of Phytopathology, 1998
- Quorum sensing and Chromobacterium violaceum: exploitation of violacein production and inhibition for the detection of N-acylhomoserine lactonesMicrobiology, 1997
- CENSUS AND CONSENSUS IN BACTERIAL ECOSYSTEMS: The LuxR-LuxI Family of Quorum-Sensing Transcriptional RegulatorsAnnual Review of Microbiology, 1996
- Quorum sensing: a population-density component in the determination of bacterial phenotypeTrends in Biochemical Sciences, 1996
- The role of pheromones in bacterial interactionsTrends in Microbiology, 1996
- Phenazine antibiotic production inPseudomonas aureofaciens: role in rhizosphere ecology and pathogen suppressionFEMS Microbiology Letters, 1996
- The bacterial ‘enigma’: cracking the code of cell–cell communicationMolecular Microbiology, 1995
- Use of Mixtures of Fluorescent Pseudomonads to Suppress Take-all and Improve the Growth of WheatPhytopathology®, 1994
- How and why bacteria talk to each otherCell, 1993
- Cloning and Heterologous Expression of the Phenazine Biosynthetic Locus fromPseudomonas aureofaciens30-84Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions®, 1992