Targeting Acyl Homoserine Lactones (AHLs) by the Quorum Quenching Bacterial Strains to Control Biofilm Formation in

Navigating novel biological strategies to mitigate bacterial biofilms have great worth to combat bacterial infections. Bacterial infections caused by the biofilm forming bacteria are 1000 times more resistant to antibiotics than the planktonic bacteria. Among the known bacterial infections, more than 70% involve biofilms which severely complicates treatment options. Biofilm formation is mainly regulated by the Quorum sensing (QS) mechanism. Interference with the QS system by the quorum quenching (QQ) enzyme is a potent strategy to mitigate biofilm. In this study, bacterial strains with QQ activity were identified and their anti-biofilm potential was investigated against the Multidrug Resistant (MDR) . A CV026 and A136-based bioassays were used to confirm the degradation of different Acyl Homoserine Lactones (AHLs) by QQ isolates. The gene sequencing of the isolated strains identified them as strain QSP03, strain QSP10, strain QQ3 and strain QSP01. Biofilm mitigation potential of QQ isolates was tested against MDR and the results suggested that 50% biofilm reduction was observed by QQ3 and QSP01 strains, and around 60% reduction by QSP10 and QSP03 bacterial isolates. The presence of AHL degrading enzymes, lactonases and acylases, was confirmed by PCR based screening and sequencing of the already annotated genes , and Altogether, these results exhibit that QQ bacterial strains or their products could be useful to control biofilm formation in