title: Bacterial contact-dependent growth inhibition.
abstract: Bacteria cooperate to form multicellular communities and compete against one another for environmental resources. Here, we review recent advances in the understanding of bacterial competition mediated by contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) systems. Different CDI+ bacteria deploy a variety of toxins to inhibit neighboring cells and protect themselves from autoinhibition by producing specific immunity proteins. The genes encoding CDI toxin-immunity protein pairs appear to be exchanged between cdi loci and are often associated with other toxin-delivery systems in diverse bacterial species. CDI also appears to facilitate cooperative behavior between kin, suggesting that these systems may have other roles beyond competition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9625, USA.
authors.forename: Zachary C
authors.initials: ZC
authors.lastname: Ruhe
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Low
authors.forename: Christopher S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Hayes
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000378:metabolism; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D003260:Contact Inhibition
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins