ANTI- QUORUM SENSING AND ANTI- BIOFILM COMPOUNDS FROM MARINE MICROBIOME

Quorum Sensing (QS) is a cell to cell communication process relying on the production of signaling molecules that enable the synchronization of gene expression. This process affects an array of microbial community functions including the ability to develop biofilms.

Understanding these communication processes and how to disrupt them, may help in the development of innovative methodologies for producing novel antimicrobial agents. In order to assess the quorum sensing inhibition (QSI) characteristics of uncultured bacterial species, 2500 environmental Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC) vectors from a Red Sea metagenomic library were screened using a soft agar overlay technique with the bacterium Chromobacterium violaceum CV026 as an indicator. This screening method revealed that 7% of the bacterial clones showed high QSI activity (>40%) against C. violaceum CV026, suggesting that QSI ability is common in the marine environment. The clones that showed inhibition activity were cultured and the active phase was extracted from the supernatant.

The results indicated that the most active compound found in this study, eluted from strain 14-A5, possess not only the ability to disrupt QS signaling pathways, but also is able to reduce biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa and A. baumannii. Since biofilm forming bacteria are resistance to conventional therapeutic drugs, the biofilm prevention approach may provide a promising treatment and is a worthy area for research.