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A new quorum-sensing inhibitor attenuates virulence and decreases antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

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Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) has been a novel target for the treatment of infectious diseases. Here structural analogs of Pseudomonas aeruginosa autoinducer N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) were investigated for QS inhibitor (QSI) activity and a novel QSI was discovered, N-decanoyl-L-homoserine benzyl ester (C2). Virulence assays showed that C2 down-regulated total protease and elastase activities, as well as the production of rhamnolipid, that are controlled by QS in P. aeruginosa wild-type strain PAO1 without affecting growth. C2 was also shown to inhibit swarming motility of PAO1. Using a microdilution checkerboard method, we identified synergistic interactions between C2 and several antibiotics, tobramycin, gentamycin, cefepime, and meropenem. Data from real-time RT-PCR suggested that C2 inhibited the expression of lasR (29.67%), lasI (21.57%), rhlR (28.20%), and rhlI (29.03%).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Microbial Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China

    Yu-Xiang Yang, Zhen-Hua Xu, Yu-Qian Zhang & Li-Xing Weng

  2. Institute of Advanced Materials, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210046, P. R. China

    Jing Tian & Lian-Hui Wang

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  1. Yu-Xiang Yang
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  2. Zhen-Hua Xu
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  3. Yu-Qian Zhang
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  4. Jing Tian
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  5. Li-Xing Weng
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  6. Lian-Hui Wang
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Correspondence to Li-Xing Weng or Lian-Hui Wang.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Yang, YX., Xu, ZH., Zhang, YQ. et al. A new quorum-sensing inhibitor attenuates virulence and decreases antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa . J Microbiol. 50, 987–993 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-012-2149-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-012-2149-7

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