Quorum sensing (QS) is a communication system used by bacteria to coordinate a wide panel of biological functions in a cell density-dependent manner. The Gram-negative Chromobacterium violaceum has previously been shown to use an acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL)-based QS to regulate various behaviors, including the production of proteases, hydrogen cyanide, or antimicrobial compounds such as violacein. By using combined metabolomic and proteomic approaches, we demonstrated that QS modulates the production of antimicrobial and toxic compounds in C. violaceum ATCC 12472. We provided the first evidence of anisomycin antibiotic production by this strain as well as evidence of its regulation by QS and identified new AHLs produced by C. violaceum ATCC 12472. Furthermore, we demonstrated that targeting AHLs with lactonase leads to major QS disruption yielding significant molecular and phenotypic changes. These modifications resulted in drastic changes in social interactions between C. violaceum and a Gram-positive bacterium (Bacillus cereus), a yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), immune cells (murine macrophages), and an animal model (planarian Schmidtea mediterranea). These results underscored that AHL-based QS plays a key role in the capacity of C. violaceum to interact with micro- and macroorganisms and that quorum quenching can affect microbial population dynamics beyond AHL-producing bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria.

群体感应 (QS) 是细菌用来以细胞密度依赖性方式协调广泛的生物功能的通信系统。先前已证明革兰氏阴性色杆菌使用基于酰基高丝氨酸内酯 (AHL) 的 QS 来调节各种行为，包括蛋白酶、氰化氢或抗微生物化合物（如紫罗兰素）的产生。通过使用组合的代谢组学和蛋白质组学方法，我们证明了 QS 调节了C. violaceum ATCC 12472中抗菌和有毒化合物的产生。我们提供了该菌株产生茴香霉素抗生素的第一个证据以及 QS 对其进行调节的证据C. violaceum产生的新 AHLsATCC 12472。此外，我们证明了用内酯酶靶向 AHL 会导致主要的 QS 中断，从而产生显着的分子和表型变化。这些修改导致C. violaceum与革兰氏阳性菌（蜡状芽孢杆菌）、酵母（酿酒酵母）、免疫细胞（鼠巨噬细胞）和动物模型（地中海涡虫）之间的社会相互作用发生了巨大变化。这些结果强调，基于 AHL 的 QS 在C. violaceum与微生物和大型生物相互作用的能力中起着关键作用，并且群体淬灭可以影响除产生 AHL 的细菌和革兰氏阴性细菌之外的微生物种群动态。