Growth of Salmonella enteritidis and Salmonella typhimurium in the presence of quorum sensing signalling compounds produced by spoilage and pathogenic bacteria

The effect of acylated homoserine lactones (AHLs) and autoinducer-2 (AI-2) signalling compounds present in the cell-free culture supernatants (CFS), of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Yersinia enterocolitica-like GTE 112, Serratia proteamaculans 00612, Y. enterocolitica CITY650 and Y. enterocolitica CITY844, on the growth of two Salmonella Enteritidis and two S. Typhimurium strains was assessed though monitoring of changes in conductance of the medium. Detection times (Tdet), area and slope of conductance curves were recorded. Except for P. aeruginosa 108928, which was not found to produce AI-2, all other strains produced both AHLs and AI-2. Thereafter, aliquots (20% in the final volume) of these CFS were transferred into NZ Amine broth inoculated with ca. 103 CFU/ml of stationary phase cultures of each Salmonella strain. While the CFS of P. aeruginosa induced a shorter detection time, i.e. acceleration of the metabolic activity, the CFS of the other microorganisms increased the detection time of Salmonella strains compared to control samples (i.e. without CFS). Results indicate that the growth of Salmonella may be affected by the presence of Quorum sensing (QS) signalling compounds and/or other novel signals existing in CFS, produced by other bacterial species and confirm the complexity of bacterial communication.

► The growth kinetic parameters as well as the microbial activity of four Salmonella strains were affected by the addition of CFS that contain quorum sensing compounds, and produced by other pathogenic and spoilage bacteria.
► There was not a uniform type of response in the bacterial strains tested.