Bac­te­ria use a chem­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion process called quo­rum sens­ing to con­trol tran­si­tions between indi­vid­ual and group behav­iors. In the bac­te­ria known as Vib­rio har­veyi, two mas­ter “switches” of gene reg­u­la­tion, or tran­scrip­tion fac­tors, coor­di­nate the quorum-sensing response.The researchers found that one of the reg­u­la­tors, LuxR, acts as a sort of mas­ter switch that reg­u­lates quorum-sensing, while the other reg­u­la­tor, AphA, does the fine-tuning. Together the two reg­u­la­tors gen­er­ate a pre­cise pat­tern of activ­ity as bac­te­ria tran­si­tion from act­ing as indi­vid­u­als to act­ing as a group.

Julia C. van Kessel, Steven T. Ruther­ford, Yi Shao, Alan F. Utria, and Bon­nie L. Bassler. The mas­ter reg­u­la­tors AphA and LuxR con­trol the Vib­rio har­veyi quorum-sensing reg­u­lon: analy­sis of their indi­vid­ual and com­bined effects
J. Bac­te­riol. pub­lished 30 Novem­ber 2012, 10.1128/JB.01998–12

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