Novel Insights on the Functional Aspects of Quorum Sensing Systems and Its Applications in Medicine, Food Industry, and Agriculture

Abstract

Microbes accustom to an array of behaviors and coordinate population signaled by AHL molecules to determine population density, trigger new patterns of gene expression, and mount virulence and pathogenesis. Diverse bacterial behaviors regulated by quorum sensing systems have a noteworthy impact on different fields of medicine, industry, and agriculture. Therefore, the ability of AHL molecules to modulate QS systems has remarkable real-world implications. This book exemplifies the magnitude and applications of QS and quorum sensing inhibitors (QSI) and its critical role in regulating diverse cellular functions. QS regulates interactions in both signal-producing organisms and between different species, viz., pathogenic, beneficial, and symbiotic microbes and higher organisms (symbiosis, growth promotion, pathogenicity). Its importance in agriculture (in the areas of plant–microbe interactions in connection to symbiosis and pathogenicity (plant growth promotion, biocontrol, virulence, and pathogenesis) ecology (microbial habitats), medicine (colonization of medical devices and disease causing human and animal hosts), food industry (food production, spoilage, and preservation), aquatic, industrial plant biofouling and activated sludge digestion. Nonetheless, complete management of bacterial quorum circuit in a biotechnological application is yet to be an incredulous goal. These strategies that are only in a preface and pose quite a lot of questions on exact nature of biofilms both in terms of implicated microbes and composition of extracellular matrix will remain a great task, but unquestionably this field stands high hope for future applications.