Quorum sensing (QS) describes a chemical communication behavior that is nearly universal among bacteria. Individual cells release a diffusible small molecule (an autoinducer) into their environment. A high concentration of this autoinducer serves as a signal of high population density, triggering new patterns of gene expression throughout the population. However QS is often much more complex than this simple census-taking behavior. Many QS bacteria produce and detect multiple autoinducers, which generate quorum signal cross talk with each other and with other bacterial species. QS gene...

Quorum sensing (QS) describes a chemical communication behavior that is nearly universal among bacteria. Individual cells release a diffusible small molecule (an autoinducer) into their environment. A high concentration of this autoinducer serves as a signal of high population density, triggering new patterns of gene expression throughout the population. However QS is often much more complex than this simple census-taking behavior. Many QS bacteria produce and detect multiple autoinducers, which generate quorum signal cross talk with each other and with other bacterial species. QS gene...

Narrows down the scope of physical biology by focusing on the microbial cell. It explores the physical phenomena of noise, feedback, and variability that arise in the cellular information-processing circuits used by bacteria. It also looks at the microbe from a physics perspective, to ask how the cell optimizes its function to live within the constraints of physics.