Quorum sensing, or the ability of a population, to respond to an environmental cue in a coordinated manner has made fundamental changes about how we understand bacterial physiology. In this framework, a population, once it exceeds a certain threshold in size, and in the appropriate environmental conditions, coordinates expression of genes across individual members of the population in a fashion so that all individual members are in sync. This ability allows the population to accomplish tasks (like searching for nutrients in the surrounding environment) that would be difficult to perform, if undertaken by a single cell. In this context, quorum sensing is a homogenizing force in a population. However, in recent years, a number of studies have reported that quorum sensing can also lead to a heterogeneous response in terms of gene expression across the population. A discussion of the strategies which explain this heterogeneity in the population at a single-cell resolution is the focus of this review.

中文翻译：

---

群体感应群体中表型异质性的生理优势

群体感应或种群以协调方式对环境线索做出反应的能力已经对我们理解细菌生理学的方式产生了根本性的变化。在这个框架中，一旦种群规模超过某个阈值，并且在适当的环境条件下，它就会以某种方式协调种群中个体成员的基因表达，从而使所有个体成员保持同步。这种能力使种群能够完成如果由单个细胞承担则难以执行的任务（例如在周围环境中寻找营养物质）。在这种情况下，群体感应是群体中的同质化力量。然而，近年来，许多研究报告称，群体感应也可能导致整个群体基因表达的异质反应。本综述的重点是讨论在单细胞分辨率下解释群体中这种异质性的策略。