TY - JOUR T1 - Peptide-based quorum sensing systems in <em>Paenibacillus polymyxa</em> JF - Life Science Alliance JO - Life Sci. Alliance DO - 10.26508/lsa.202000847 VL - 3 IS - 10 SP - e202000847 AU - Maya Voichek AU - Sandra Maaß AU - Tobias Kroniger AU - Dörte Becher AU - Rotem Sorek Y1 - 2020/10/01 UR - https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/3/10/e202000847.abstract N2 - Paenibacillus polymyxa is an agriculturally important plant growth–promoting rhizobacterium. Many Paenibacillus species are known to be engaged in complex bacteria–bacteria and bacteria–host interactions, which in other species were shown to necessitate quorum sensing communication. However, to date, no quorum sensing systems have been described in Paenibacillus. Here, we show that the type strain P. polymyxa ATCC 842 encodes at least 16 peptide-based communication systems. Each of these systems is comprised of a pro-peptide that is secreted to the growth medium and processed to generate a mature short peptide. Each peptide has a cognate intracellular receptor of the RRNPP family, and we show that external addition of P. polymyxa communication peptides leads to reprogramming of the transcriptional response. We found that these quorum sensing systems are conserved across hundreds of species belonging to the Paenibacillaceae family, with some species encoding more than 25 different peptide-receptor pairs, representing a record number of quorum sensing systems encoded in a single genome. ER -