P aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that produces extr

P. aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that produces extracellular proteases only when it’s cell density is high. What do we call this type of cellular communication? (a full credit answer will require a sentence or two to describe the process).

Solution

Answer:

P. aeruginosa appears to control the production of many of its extracellular virulence factors by a mechanism that monitors bacterial cell density and allows communication between bacteria by cell-to-cell signaling. Bacteria are able to sense their environment, process information, and react appropriately; however, their ability to sense their own cell density, to communicate with each other, and to behave as a population instead of individual cells has only recently been understood. This type of cellular communication is called as quorum-sensing or cell-to-cell signaling.

The first cell-to-cell signaling system described in P. aeruginosa was shown to regulate expression of LasB elastase and was therefore named the las system.