University of Wisconsin-Madison Chemistry Professor Helen Blackwell has been studying quorum-sensing, a molecular signaling system that enables bacteria to function as communicative organisms, for more than ten years, according to a Thursday university press release.
Quorum-sensing facilitates the relay of chemical messages in bacterial communities, according to the release.
In an attempt to find which point modifications deactivate or activate quorum-sensing signals, Blackwell changed key building blocks in the proteins that make up these signals.
According to the release, once the population of quorum-sensing bacterial colonies becomes large enough, the release of signals will inform other bacteria to change from harmless to pathogenic, or vice versa. In this way, quorum-sensing is an evolutionarily advantageous trait.
Blackwell’s study was performed mainly on Gram negative bacteria, which have a double membrane to protect them against drugs.
Learning more about this kind of bacteria, which can cause a variety of diseases including meningitis, gonorrhea, and cholera, could prove to be enormously advantageous in the treatment of disease, according to the release.
One of the most beneficial applications of quorum-sensing research would be reducing pathogenic behavior in bacteria without killing off the microbes, thereby clearing the infection without causing drug resistance.
“We are approaching the end of the antibiotic era, as bacteria evolve resistance to some of our most advanced drugs, and scientists are looking for alternative ways to control bacteria,” Blackwell said in the release.
Blackwell recently published her research about the molecular structure of quorum-sensing signals in the journal “Chemistry & Biology.”
