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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2002, p. 4111-4116, Vol. 68, No. 8
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.8.4111-4116.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Possible Quorum Sensing in Marine Snow Bacteria: Production of Acylated Homoserine Lactones by Roseobacter Strains Isolated from Marine Snow

Lone Gram,1* Hans-Peter Grossart,2 Andrea Schlingloff,2 and Thomas Kiørboe3

Department of Seafood Research, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby,1 Department of Marine Ecology and Aquaculture, Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, DK-2920 Charlottenlund, Denmark,3 Institution for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, University of Oldenburg, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany2

Received 22 January 2002/ Accepted 26 April 2002

We report here, for the first time, that bacteria associated with marine snow produce communication signals involved in quorum sensing in gram-negative bacteria. Four of 43 marine microorganisms isolated from marine snow were found to produce acylated homoserine lactones (AHLs) in well diffusion and thin-layer chromatographic assays based on the Agrobacterium tumefaciens reporter system. Three of the AHL-producing strains were identified by 16S ribosomal DNA gene sequence analysis as Roseobacter spp., and this is the first report of AHL production by these {alpha}-Proteobacteria. It is likely that AHLs in Roseobacter species and other marine snow bacteria govern phenotypic traits (biofilm formation, exoenzyme production, and antibiotic production) which are required mainly when the population reaches high densities, e.g., in the marine snow community.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, Department of Seafood Research, Søltofts Plads, c/o Technical University of Denmark, Bldg. 221, DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark. Phone: 45 45 25 25 86. Fax: 45 45 88 47 74. E-mail: gram{at}dfu.min.dk.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, August 2002, p. 4111-4116, Vol. 68, No. 8
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.8.4111-4116.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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Copyright © 2002 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.