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Virtual screening for novel quorum sensing inhibitors to eradicate biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

  • Applied Microbial and Cell Physiology
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Abstract

The automated docking program DOCK 5.3.0 was applied to screening for quorum sensing inhibitors (QSIs) of Peudomonus aeruginosa from a database containing 51 active components of Traditional Chinese Medicines with antibacterial activity. Five potential QSIs were revealed by the computer-based virtual screening. The compounds 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 inhibit biofilm formation of P. aeruginosa at a concentration of 200 μM. Compound 4 (baicalein) does not inhibit the growth of P. aeruginosa; however, it significantly inhibits biofilm formation of the bacteria at a lower concentration of 20 μM and promoted proteolysis of the signal receptor TraR protein in Escherichia coli at 4–40 mM. Baicalein and ampicillin showed synergistic activity against P. aeruginosa. These results suggested that baicalein can interfere with quorum sensing system of P. aeruginosa and will be developed as antibacterial agent with novel target.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National High-Tech Development Program of China (2007AA091904, 2007AA09Z402) and National Natural Science Foundation (NO. 20231010). We gratefully thank the Open Laboratory for Marine Functional Genomics of State High-Tech Development Program, College of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, P. R. China for providing the Sybyl 6.9 and thank the Kuntz Group for providing the DOCK program.

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Correspondence to Lixiang Cao or Shining Zhou.

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Zeng, Z., Qian, L., Cao, L. et al. Virtual screening for novel quorum sensing inhibitors to eradicate biofilm formation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa . Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 79, 119–126 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1406-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-008-1406-5

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