Despite published evidence that IQS (2-(2-hydroxylphenyl)-thiazole-4-carbaldehyde) is in fact aeruginaldehyde, a by-product of the siderophore pyochelin biosynthesis or degradation and that the ambABCDE genes are not responsible for IQS synthesis, several authors, including in top review journals, perpetuate the wrong information. I hope that this short comment will clarify the situation once and for all. K E Y W O R D S aeruginaldehyde, IQS, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, pyochelin, quorum sensing 2 of 2 | CORNELIS al., 2014). In a very recent study, Trottmann et al. confirmed that aeruginaldehyde is derived from pyochelin since an incubation of the siderophore at 30°C resulted in the appearance of aeruginaldehyde (Trottmann et al., 2019). Ye et al. (2014) suggested that aeruginaldehyde could derive from dihydroaeruginoic acid (Dha) released from PchE during the assembly of the NRPS enzymes and the biosynthetic process (Ye et al., 2014). Interestingly, Maspoli, Wenner, Mislin, and Reimmann (2014) found in P. aeruginosa PA14 a genomic island containing genes for the biosynthesis of (enantio)pyochelin. Complementation of a pyochelin negative mutant with one NRPS gene led to the production of Dha (Maspoli et al., 2014). In a recent study, Sun et al. found that only the Rhl and PQS QS systems are involved in the regulation of phenazine production in a P. aeruginosa strain while mutants with deletions in amb or pch genes clusters were not affected in their production of phenazine compounds, excluding their possible participation in the QS circuitry (Sun, Zhou, Jin, Jiang, & He, 2016).
| CON CLUS IONDespite the evidence presented here in this short commentary, still scientists publish articles, including reviews, mentioning IQS as the fourth quorum sensing molecule of P. aeruginosa being the product of AmbABCDE. The aim of this short comment is to clarify this point.