Isolation of Quorum Quenching Microorganisms and Screening Methods

Quorum sensing is one of the regulatory mechanisms of gene expression that has received the most attention in the last two decades. In consequence, its interruption by means of quorum quenching (QQ) strategies is highly relevant. After a brief presentation of quorum sensing and its signal molecules, in this chapter, we discuss the potentialities of interfering with them, the methods for the isolation of QQ microorganisms and the characterization of the QQ enzymes. Particular attention is paid to N-acyl homoserine lactone-inactivating enzymes, considering that these are the best characterized signals. However, enzymes acting on other signals are also considered.