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Science 321 (5893): 1203-1206

Copyright © 2008 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Redox-Active Antibiotics Control Gene Expression and Community Behavior in Divergent Bacteria

Lars E. P. Dietrich,1,3 Tracy K. Teal,4 Alexa Price-Whelan,1,4 Dianne K. Newman1,2,3*

Abstract: It is thought that bacteria excrete redox-active pigments as antibiotics to inhibit competitors. In Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the endogenous antibiotic pyocyanin activates SoxR, a transcription factor conserved in Proteo- and Actinobacteria. In Escherichia coli, SoxR regulates the superoxide stress response. Bioinformatic analysis coupled with gene expression studies in P. aeruginosa and Streptomyces coelicolor revealed that the majority of SoxR regulons in bacteria lack the genes required for stress responses, despite the fact that many of these organisms still produce redox-active small molecules, which indicates that redox-active pigments play a role independent of oxidative stress. These compounds had profound effects on the structural organization of colony biofilms in both P. aeruginosa and S. coelicolor, which shows that "secondary metabolites" play important conserved roles in gene expression and development.

1 Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 01239, USA.
2 Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 01239, USA.
3 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 01239, USA.
4 Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dkn{at}mit.edu

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