IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v450y2007i7168d10.1038_nature06279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cooperation and conflict in quorum-sensing bacterial populations

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen P. Diggle

    (Institute of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, University Park, University of Nottingham)

  • Ashleigh S. Griffin

    (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, King’s Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK)

  • Genevieve S. Campbell

    (Institute of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation, Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, University Park, University of Nottingham)

  • Stuart A. West

    (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, King’s Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK)

Abstract

Communication cheats Communication between bacteria via the release and sensing of small diffusible signal molecules, or quorum sensing, is thought to be a way of coordinating cooperative behaviours at the population level. Evolutionary theory predicts that individuals who communicate and cooperate are vulnerable to cheaters, who either do not signal or fail to respond to signals. Experiments in colonies of the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which signals between cells to regulate virulence factor expression, now confirm that both signal and signal-receptor mutants (or 'cheats') do have a fitness advantage. But a solution to the cheating problem does exist in the form of kin selection — 'honest' communication is favoured when it is between close relatives. The findings provide an explanation for the spread of cheats that has been observed in bacterial infections of humans.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen P. Diggle & Ashleigh S. Griffin & Genevieve S. Campbell & Stuart A. West, 2007. "Cooperation and conflict in quorum-sensing bacterial populations," Nature, Nature, vol. 450(7168), pages 411-414, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7168:d:10.1038_nature06279
    DOI: 10.1038/nature06279
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06279
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature06279?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jorge M Pacheco & Vítor V Vasconcelos & Francisco C Santos & Brian Skyrms, 2015. "Co-evolutionary Dynamics of Collective Action with Signaling for a Quorum," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-12, February.
    2. Eran Even-Tov & Shira Omer Bendori & Julie Valastyan & Xiaobo Ke & Shaul Pollak & Tasneem Bareia & Ishay Ben-Zion & Bonnie L Bassler & Avigdor Eldar, 2016. "Social Evolution Selects for Redundancy in Bacterial Quorum Sensing," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(2), pages 1-18, February.
    3. Elhanati, Yuval & Schuster, Stefan & Brenner, Naama, 2011. "Dynamic modeling of cooperative protein secretion in microorganism populations," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 49-63.
    4. Kerry E Boyle & Hilary Monaco & Dave van Ditmarsch & Maxime Deforet & Joao B Xavier, 2015. "Integration of Metabolic and Quorum Sensing Signals Governing the Decision to Cooperate in a Bacterial Social Trait," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-26, June.
    5. Anne Mund & Christina Kuttler & Judith Pérez-Velázquez, 2019. "Using G -Functions to Investigate the Evolutionary Stability of Bacterial Quorum Sensing," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-17, November.
    6. Martin Schuster & Eric Foxall & David Finch & Hal Smith & Patrick De Leenheer, 2017. "Tragedy of the commons in the chemostat," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(12), pages 1-13, December.
    7. Li, Yixiao & Shen, Bin, 2013. "The coevolution of partner switching and strategy updating in non-excludable public goods game," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(20), pages 4956-4965.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:450:y:2007:i:7168:d:10.1038_nature06279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.