Quorum sensing is used by bacteria to sense the density of c

Quorum sensing

Solution

Answer: (e) is used by bacteria to sense the density of cells AND involves the production and monitoring of the amount of homoserine lactone present.

Quorum Sensing is a term to describe the phenomenon whereby the accumulation of signalling molecules enable a single cell to sense the number of bacteria (cell density).

Bacteria that use quorum sensing constitutively produce and secrete certain signaling molecules. Common classes of signaling molecules are oligopeptides in Gram-positive bacteria, N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHL) in Gram-negative bacteria, and a family of autoinducers known as autoinducer-2 (AI-2) in both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria.