Quorum sensing systems and persistence

In order to control the clonal population's fitness to manage the expense of the resources by the community, it is not surprising that bacterial communities coordinate the formation of persister cells (bacterial subpopulations that survive stress conditions such as antibiotic or environmental threats). The development of these persister cells is linked to the activity of intercellular signaling molecules. Among them, we focus on acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL), the competence-stimulating peptide (CSP), indole (IND) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2), all involved in the quorum sensing systems activation in several pathogens. In this work, we will describe the action of these molecules related with quorum sensing systems in Gram positive Streptococcus mutans and Staphylococcus aureus and in Gram negative Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Acinetobacter spp. bacteria.