SEMINAR: Microbiology & Immunology Seminar Series: A search for marine bacterial quorum quenching compounds

Ms Jamie Summerfield, postgraduate student (PhD), will give a talk on a search for marine bacterial quorum quenching compounds in the Microbiology & Immunology Discipline Seminar room, Friday, 14 October 2011 at 9:00am. Bacteria use a process called quorum sensing to communicate with each other and coordinate the production of factors related to virulence including toxins, proteases and biofilm production. The inhibition of bacterial quorum sensing, or quorum quenching, could be a novel method for the control of bacterial disease. Marine bacteria isolated from waters of the Perth metropolitan region were investigated for the production of compounds inhibiting quorum sensing. The active compounds produced by two isolates were purified and subsequently found to be specific inhibitors of quorum sensing by the bacterium Vibrio harveyi, a pathogen of prawns, fish and other marine animals.