Essay Examples on Massachusetts Maritime Academy

Quorum sensing QS is a phenomenon of cell cell communication in many Bacteria

Quorum sensing QS is a phenomenon of cell-cell communication in many bacteria This phenomenon is density-dependent and mediated by molecular signals like N Acyl homoserine lactone AHL in gram-negative bacteria e g proteobacteria and small peptides in Gram-positive bacteria In response to these molecular signals bacteria perform various microbial processes like virulence bioluminescence conjugation etc These AHLs are synthesized by LuxI and bind to ABD domain at N terminus of its cognate pair However in many bacteria they do not exist in their respective genomes and have yet functional LuxR suggesting that this LuxR can exist without its cognate pair These LuxR transcription factors are called as orphan or solo LuxR which can be recognized either by endogenous or exogenous signal molecules Few bacterial LuxR solos were associated with interkingdom signaling where the LuxR is recognized by signal molecules released by plant and these bacteria are termed as plant-associated bacteria PAB 

The LuxR solos found in actinobacteria among other non-proteobacteria are evolutionarily distant from the rest which are evolutionarily highly related to well studied proteobacterial LuxR solos Mycobacteria which belongs to the family of actinobacteria also harbors LuxR solos These LuxR proteins are functional as they are part of two-component systems in mycobacteria RegX3 is one of the well-characterized LuxR family proteins that functions as a two-component response protein along with SenX3 in phosphate transport


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