Quercetin Influences Quorum Sensing in Food Borne Bacteria: In-Vitro and In-Silico Evidence

Abstract

Quorum sensing (QS) plays a vital role in regulating the virulence factor of many food borne pathogens, which causes severe public health risk. Therefore, interrupting the QS signaling pathway may be an attractive strategy to combat microbial infections. In the current study QS inhibitory activity of quercetin and its anti-biofilm property was assessed against food-borne pathogens using a bio-sensor strain. In addition in-silico techniques like molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation studies were applied to screen the quercetin’s potentiality as QS inhibitor. Quercetin (80μg/ml) showed the significant reduction in QS-dependent phenotypes like violacein production, biofilm formation, exopolysaccharide (EPS) production, motility and alginate production in a concentration-dependent manner. Synergistic activity of conventional antibiotics with quercetin enhanced the susceptibility of all tested pathogens. Furthermore, Molecular docking analysis revealed that quercetin binds more rigidly with LasR receptor protein than the signaling compound with docking score of -9.17Kcal/mol. Molecular dynamics simulation predicted that QS inhibitory activity of quercetin occurs through the conformational changes between the receptor and quercetin complex. Above findings suggest that quercetin can act as a competitive inhibitor for signaling compound towards LasR receptor pathway and can serve as a novel QS-based antibacterial/anti-biofilm drug to manage food-borne pathogens.

Biogenic synthesis of Zinc oxide nanostructures from Nigella sativa seed: Prospective role as food packaging material inhibiting broad-spectrum quorum sensing and biofilm

“…Effect of Sub-MICs of NS-ZnNPs on virulence factors of P. aeruginosa such as LasB elastase, protease, pyocyanin, alginate production was determined using protocols described previously3132.…”

Antibacterial Flavonoids from Medicinal Plants Covalently Inactivate Type III Protein Secretion Substrates

“…Since many plant bacterial pathogens use type III secretion systems to cause disease and sense flavonoids 30 , it is possible that some of these compounds may have evolved as a consequence host-pathogen interactions. Moreover, flavonoids have also been reported to target other anti-infective properties such as expression of virulence genes 31,32 , toxin activity 33-35 , quorum sensing 36-39 and biofilm formation 40,41 in bacterial pathogens as well as attenuate destructive host inflammation 42-44 . Given the broad pharmacological activities of flavonoids, these plant metabolites may affect microbial virulence mechanisms, including type III protein secretion substrates shown here, in addition to host pathways for their anti-infective properties in vivo .…”

Biofabrication of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticle fromOchradenus baccatusLeaves: Broad-Spectrum Antibiofilm Activity, Protein Binding Studies, andIn VivoToxicity and Stress Studies

“…After incubation alginate production was estimated as described by Gopu et al [30]. Briefly, 70 l of test sample was mixed with 600 l of boric acid-sulphuric acid solution (4 : 1) in an ice bath.…”