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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES / MICROBIOLOGY
Quorum sensing and motility mediate interactions between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Agrobacterium tumefaciens in biofilm cocultures

Dingding An^*,, Thomas Danhorn, Clay Fuqua, and Matthew R. Parsek^*,

*Department of Microbiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208

Communicated by E. Peter Greenberg, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, January 3, 2006 (received for review July 6, 2005)

In the environment, multiple microbial taxa typically coexist as communities, competing for resources and, often, physically associated within biofilms. A dual-species cocultivation model has been developed by using two ubiquitous and well studied microbes Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P.a.) and Agrobacterium tumefaciens (A.t.) as a tractable system to identify molecular mechanisms that underlie multispecies microbial associations. Several factors were found to influence coculture interactions. P.a. had a distinct growth-rate advantage in cocultures, increasing its relative abundance during planktonic and biofilm growth. P.a. also demonstrated a slight quorum-sensing-dependent increase in growth yield in liquid cocultures. P.a. dominated coculture biofilms, "blanketing" or burying immature A.t. microcolonies. P.a. flagellar and type IV pili mutant strains exhibited deficient blanketing and impaired competition in coculture biofilms, whereas, in planktonic coculture, these mutations had no effect on competition. In contrast, A.t. used motility to emigrate from coculture biofilms. In both planktonic and biofilm cocultures, A.t. remained viable for extended periods of time, coexisting with its more numerous competitor. These findings reveal that quorum-sensing-regulated functions and surface motility are important microbial competition factors for P.a. and that the outcome of competition and the relative contribution of different factors to competition are strongly influenced by the environment in which they occur.

flagella | interspecies interactions

Conflict of interest statement: No conflicts declared.

To whom correspondence should be addressed at: 540 EMRB, Department of Microbiology, The Roy and Lucille Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242. E-mail: matthew-parsek{at}uiowa.edu

© 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA

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