title: Caffeine as a potential quorum sensing inhibitor.
abstract: Quorum sensing enables bacteria to control the gene expression in response to the cell density. It regulates a variety of bacterial physiological functions such as biofilm formation, bioluminescence, virulence factors and swarming which has been shown contribute to bacterial pathogenesis. The use of quorum sensing inhibitor would be of particular interest in treating bacterial pathogenicity and infections. In this work, we have tested caffeine as quorum sensing inhibitor by using Chromobacterium violaceum CV026 as a biosensor. We verified that caffeine did not degrade the N-acyl homoserine lactones tested. In this work, it is shown that caffeine could inhibit N-acyl homoserine lactone production and swarming of a human opportunistic pathogen, namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first documentation providing evidence on the presence of anti-quorum sensing activity in caffeine. Our work will allow caffeine to be explored as anti-infective drugs.
authors.affiliation: Division of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur 50603, Malaysia. maisarahnorizan@siswa.um.edu.my
authors.forename: Siti Nur Maisarah
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Norizan
authors.forename: Wai-Fong
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Kok-Gan
authors.initials: KG
authors.lastname: Chan
mesh_terms: D054742:Acyl-Butyrolactones / Q000378:metabolism; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D001681:Biological Assay; D002110:Caffeine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D002861:Chromobacterium / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D008826:Microbial Sensitivity Tests; D009068:Movement / Q000187:drug effects; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000187:drug effects*; D053038:Quorum Sensing / Q000187:drug effects*
chemical_list: D054742:Acyl-Butyrolactones; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D002110:Caffeine