title: "Quorum Non-Sensing": Social Cheating and Deception in Vibrio cholerae.
abstract: Quorum sensing (QS) is widely used by bacteria to coordinate behavior in response to external stimuli. In Vibrio cholerae, this process is important for environmental survival and pathogenesis, though, intriguingly, a large percentage of natural isolates are QS deficient. Here, we show that QS-deficient mutants can spread as social cheaters by ceasing production of extracellular proteases under conditions requiring their growth. We further show that mutants stimulate biofilm formation and are over-represented in biofilms compared to planktonic communities; on this basis, we suggest that QS-deficient mutants may have the side effect of enhancing environmental tolerance of natural populations due to the inherent resistance properties of biofilms. Interestingly, high frequencies of QS-deficient individuals did not impact production of QS signaling molecules despite mutants being unable to respond to these inducers, indicating that these variants actively cheat by false signaling under conditions requiring QS. Taken together, our results suggest that social cheating may drive QS deficiency emergence within V. cholerae natural populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Katzianer
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Department of Microbiology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Ryan M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Carey
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA junzhu@mail.med.upenn.edu.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D018441:Biofilms / Q000254:growth & development*; D009154:Mutation; D053038:Quorum Sensing; D014734:Vibrio cholerae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
references.citation: Nucleic Acids Res. 2009 May;37(8):2747-56
references.pmid: 19276207
references.citation: Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol. 2005;21:319-46
references.pmid: 16212498
references.citation: Infect Immun. 2006 Feb;74(2):1141-7
references.pmid: 16428762
references.citation: Cell. 2004 Jul 9;118(1):69-82
references.pmid: 15242645
references.citation: J Bacteriol. 1995 Feb;177(3):654-9
references.pmid: 7836299
references.citation: Science. 2005 Dec 16;310(5755):1824-7
references.pmid: 16357262
references.citation: Anal Bioanal Chem. 2013 Jan;405(1):109-24
references.pmid: 22965531
references.citation: Appl Environ Microbiol. 2007 Jun;73(11):3742-6
references.pmid: 17434996
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jun 13;103(24):9280-5
references.pmid: 16754867
references.citation: Plant Mol Biol. 1994 Sep;25(6):989-94
references.pmid: 7919218
references.citation: Microbiol Mol Biol Rev. 2000 Dec;64(4):847-67
references.pmid: 11104821
references.citation: Infect Immun. 2014 Mar;82(3):1045-51
references.pmid: 24343650
references.citation: Mol Microbiol. 1993 Aug;9(4):773-86
references.pmid: 8231809
references.citation: Cell. 2006 Sep 22;126(6):1095-108
references.pmid: 16990134
references.citation: Science. 2012 Oct 12;338(6104):264-6
references.pmid: 23066081
references.citation: Environ Microbiol Rep. 2011 Apr;3(2):218-222
references.pmid: 21643457
references.citation: Appl Environ Microbiol. 2003 Nov;69(11):6923-31
references.pmid: 14602656
references.citation: Int J Med Microbiol. 2006 Apr;296(2-3):93-102
references.pmid: 16503417
references.citation: Environ Microbiol. 2004 Jul;6(7):699-706
references.pmid: 15186348
references.citation: PLoS One. 2009;4(8):e6655
references.pmid: 19684853
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Oct 2;104(40):15876-81
references.pmid: 17898171
references.citation: Microbiology. 2007 Sep;153(Pt 9):2964-75
references.pmid: 17768239
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Mar 5;99(5):3129-34
references.pmid: 11854465
references.citation: Nat Rev Microbiol. 2006 Apr;4(4):249-58
references.pmid: 16501584
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2009 Feb 24;19(4):341-5
references.pmid: 19230668
references.citation: Dev Cell. 2003 Oct;5(4):647-56
references.pmid: 14536065
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2012 Dec 7;279(1748):4765-71
references.pmid: 23034707
references.citation: Infect Immun. 1996 Jul;64(7):2853-6
references.pmid: 8698524
references.citation: Appl Environ Microbiol. 2009 Jun;75(11):3808-12
references.pmid: 19346342
references.citation: Infect Immun. 2010 Jan;78(1):461-7
references.pmid: 19858311
references.citation: Plasmid. 1996 Jan;35(1):1-13
references.pmid: 8693022
references.citation: FEMS Microbiol Rev. 2002 Jun;26(2):125-39
references.pmid: 12069878
references.citation: Cell. 2002 Aug 9;110(3):303-14
references.pmid: 12176318
references.citation: Mol Microbiol. 2003 Oct;50(1):101-4
references.pmid: 14507367
references.citation: J Infect Dev Ctries. 2007;1(3):224-41
references.pmid: 19734600