Faced with the global health threat of increasing resistance to antibiotics, researchers are exploring interventions that target bacterial virulence factors. Quorum sensing is a particularly attractive target because several bacterial virulence factors are controlled by this mechanism. Furthermore, attacking the quorum-sensing signaling network is less likely to select for resistant strains than using conventional antibiotics. Strategies that focus on the inhibition of quorum-sensing signal production are especially attractive because the enzymes involved are expressed in bacterial cells but are not present in their mammalian counterparts. We review here various approaches that are being taken to interfere with quorum-sensing signal production via the inhibition of autoinducer-2 synthesis, PQS synthesis, peptide autoinducer synthesis, and N-acyl-homoserine lactone synthesis. We expect these approaches will lead to the discovery of new quorum-sensing inhibitors that can help to stem the tide of antibiotic resistance.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are small molecules present in all living beings. Despite their huge sequence variability, AMPs present great structural conservation, mainly in cysteine‐stabilized families. Moreover, in non‐model plants, it is possible to detect cysteine‐stabilized AMPs (cs‐AMPs) with different sequences not covered by conventional searches. Here, we described a threading application for cs‐AMP identification in the non‐model arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) plant, exploring the spathe transcriptome. By using the predicted proteins from the Z. aethiopica transcriptome as our primary source of sequences, we have filtered by using structural alignments of 12 putative cs‐AMP sequences. The two unreported sequences were submitted to PCR validation, and ZaLTP7 gene was confirmed. By using the structure alignments, we classified ZaLTP7 as an LTP type 2‐like. The successful threading application for cs‐AMP identification is an important advance in transcriptomic and proteomic data mining. Besides, the same approach could be applied to the use of NGS public data to discover molecules to combat multidrug‐resistant bacteria.

Defensins comprise a polyphyletic group of multifunctional defense peptides. Cisdefensins, also known as cysteine stabilized α β (CSαβ) defensins, are one of the most ancient defense peptide families. In plants, these peptides have been divided into two classes, according to their precursor organization. Class I defensins are composed of the signal peptide and the mature sequence, while class II defensins have an additional C-terminal prodomain, which is proteolytically cleaved. Class II defensins have been described in Solanaceae and Poaceae species, indicating this class could be spread among all flowering plants. Here, a search by regular expression (RegEx) was applied to the Arabidopsis thaliana proteome, a model plant with more than 300 predicted defensin genes. Two sequences were identified, A7REG2 and A7REG4, which have a typical plant defensin structure and an additional C-terminal prodomain. TraVA database indicated they are expressed in flower, ovules and seeds, and being duplicated genes, this indicates they could be a result of a subfunctionalization process. The presence of class II defensin sequences in Brassicaceae and Solanaceae and evolutionary distance between them suggest class II defensins may be present in other eudicots. Discovery of class II defensins in other plants could shed some light on flower, ovules and seed physiology, as this class is expressed in these locations.

Defensins compose a polyphyletic group of multifunctional defense peptides. The cisdefensins, also known as cysteine stabilized α β (CSαβ) defensins, are one of the most ancient defense peptide families. In plants, these peptides have been divided in two classes, according to their precursor organization. Class I defensins are composed by the signal peptide and the mature sequence, while the class II defensins have an additional C-terminal prodomain, which is posteriorly cleaved. The class II defensins have been described only in Solanaceae species, which indicated that this class is restricted to this family. In this work, a search by regular expression (RegEx) was applied to Arabidopsis thaliana proteome, a model plant with more than 300 predicted defensin genes. Two sequences were identified, A7REG2 and A7REG4, which have a typical plant defensin structure and an additional C-terminal prodomain. The evolutionary distance between Brassicaceae and Solanaceae and the presence class II defensin sequences in both families suggest that class II may be derived from a common eudicots ancestor. The discovery of class II defensins in other plants could shed some light in the plant physiology, as this class plays multiple roles in such context.