Quo vadis quorum quenching?

Abstract

With the emergence of microbial pathogens increasingly resistant against commonly used antibiotics, new treatment strategies are desperately needed. Bacterial quorum sensing has attracted a lot of attention over the last decade as a potential new target for antimicrobial therapy. Interference with quorum sensing signaling, or quorum quenching, might offer new avenues to prevent and/or treat bacterial infections via inhibition of virulence factor expression and biofilm formation. While many inhibitors of quorum sensing signaling have been described, only few have been evaluated in vivo and none has been clinically developed. This review will highlight recent findings and discuss interesting future areas where quorum quenching might be a promising strategy.