Life Sciences Commons^™

Mechanism Of Signal Transduction By The Staphylococcus Aureus Quorum Sensing Receptor Agrc, Elizabeth A. George Cisar

Student Theses and Dissertations

Bacteria use receptor histidine kinases to sense extracellular cues and convert them into intracellular signaling events that allow them to respond to their environment. In Staphylococcus aureus, each individual cell must sense the size of its overall population in order to synchronize virulence factor expression with the entire population. This task is carried out by the accessory gene regulator (agr) quorum sensing system. The agr autoinducing peptide (AIP) pheromone activates the AgrC receptor histidine kinase, resulting in downstream modulation of virulence factor expression. As S. aureus is a dangerous pathogen, understanding virulence regulation is of great interest, and the agr …