Allelopathy-selected microbiomes mitigate chemical inhibition of plant performance.

Allelopathy is a common and important stressor that shapes plant communities and can alter soil microbiomes, yet little is known about the direct effects of allelochemical addition on bacterial and fungal communities or the potential for allelochemical-selected microbiomes to mediate plant performance responses, especially in habitats naturally structured by allelopathy. Here, we present the first community-wide investigation of microbial mediation of allelochemical effects on plant performance by testing how allelopathy affects soil microbiome structure and how these microbial changes impact germination and productivity across 13 plant species. The soil microbiome exhibited significant changes to 'core' bacterial and fungal taxa, bacterial composition, abundance of functionally important bacterial and fungal taxa, and predicted bacterial functional genes after the addition of the dominant allelochemical native to this habitat. Furthermore, plant performance was mediated by the allelochemical-selected microbiome, with allelopathic inhibition of plant productivity moderately mitigated by the microbiome. Through our findings, we present a potential framework to understand the strength of plant-microbial interactions in the presence of environmental stressors, in which frequency of the ecological stress may be a key predictor of microbiome-mediation strength.

Serotonin Activates Bacterial Quorum Sensing and Enhances the Virulence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in the Host.

Bacteria in humans play an important role in health and disease. Considerable emphasis has been placed in understanding the role of bacteria in host-microbiome interkingdom communication. Here we show that serotonin, responsible for mood in the brain and motility in the gut, can also act as a bacterial signaling molecule for pathogenic bacteria. Specifically, we found that serotonin acts as an interkingdom signaling molecule via quorum sensing and that it stimulates the production of bacterial virulence factors and increases biofilm formation in vitro and in vivo in a novel mouse infection model. This discovery points out at roles of serotonin both in bacteria and humans, and at phenotypic implications not only manifested in mood behavior but also in infection processes in the host. Thus, regulating serotonin concentrations in the gut may provide with paradigm shifting therapeutic approaches.

Whole-Cell Biosensors as Tools for the Detection of Quorum-Sensing Molecules: Uses in Diagnostics and the Investigation of the Quorum-Sensing Mechanism.

Genetically engineered bacterial whole-cell biosensors are powerful tools that take advantage of bacterial proteins and pathways to allow for detection of a specific analyte. These biosensors have been employed for a broad range of applications, including the detection of bacterial quorum-sensing molecules (QSMs). Bacterial QSMs are the small molecules bacteria use for population density-dependent communication, a process referred to as quorum sensing (QS). Various research groups have investigated the presence of QSMs, including N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2), in physiological samples in attempts to enhance our knowledge of the role of bacteria and QS in disease states. Continued studies in these fields may allow for improved patient care and therapeutics based upon QSMs. Furthermore, bacterial whole-cell biosensors have elucidated the roles of some antibiotics as QS agonists and antagonists. Graphical Abstract.

Nanoparticle-mediated remote control of enzymatic activity.

Nanomaterials have found numerous applications as tunable, remotely controlled platforms for drug delivery, hyperthermia cancer treatment, and various other biomedical applications. The basis for the interest lies in their unique properties achieved at the nanoscale that can be accessed via remote stimuli. These properties could then be exploited to simultaneously activate secondary systems that are not remotely actuatable. In this work, iron oxide nanoparticles are encapsulated in a bisacrylamide cross-linked polyacrylamide hydrogel network along with a model dehalogenase enzyme, L-2-HAD(ST). This thermophilic enzyme is activated at elevated temperatures and has been shown to have optimal activity at 70 °C. By exposing the Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles to a remote stimulus, an alternating magnetic field (AMF), enhanced system heating can be achieved, thus remotely activating the enzyme. The internal heating of the nanocomposite hydrogel network in the AMF results in a 2-fold increase in enzymatic activity as compared to the same hydrogel heated externally in a water bath, suggesting that the internal heating of the nanoparticles is more efficient than the diffusion-limited heating of the water bath. This system may prove useful for remote actuation of biomedical and environmentally relevant enzymes and find applications in a variety of fields.

Bacterial spores as platforms for bioanalytical and biomedical applications.

Genetically engineered bacteria-based sensing systems have been employed in a variety of analyses because of their selectivity, sensitivity, and ease of use. These systems, however, have found limited applications in the field because of the inability of bacteria to survive long term, especially under extreme environmental conditions. In nature, certain bacteria, such as those from Clostridium and Bacillus genera, when exposed to threatening environmental conditions are capable of cocooning themselves into a vegetative state known as spores. To overcome the aforementioned limitation of bacterial sensing systems, the use of microorganisms capable of sporulation has recently been proposed. The ability of spores to endow bacteria-based sensing systems with long lives, along with their ability to cycle between the vegetative spore state and the germinated living cell, contributes to their attractiveness as vehicles for cell-based biosensors. An additional application where spores have shown promise is in surface display systems. In that regard, spores expressing certain enzymes, proteins, or peptides on their surface have been presented as a stable, simple, and safe new tool for the biospecific recognition of target analytes, the biocatalytic production of chemicals, and the delivery of biomolecules of pharmaceutical relevance. This review focuses on the application of spores as a packaging method for whole-cell biosensors, surface display of recombinant proteins on spores for bioanalytical and biotechnological applications, and the use of spores as vehicles for vaccines and therapeutic agents.