Research Article Tandem Mass Spectrometry Detection of Quorum Sensing Activity in Multidrug Resistant Clinical

Copyright © 2014 Kok-Gan Chan et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Many Proteobacteria communicate via production followed by response of quorum sensing molecules, namely,N-acyl homoserine lactones (AHLs). These molecules consist of a lactone moiety with N-acyl side chain with various chain lengths and degrees of saturation at C-3 position. AHL-dependent QS is often associated with regulation of diverse bacterial phenotypes including the expression of virulence factors. With the use of biosensor and high resolution liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, the AHL production of clinical isolate A. baumannii 4KT was studied. Production of short chain AHL, namely, N-hexanoyl-homoserine lactone (C6-HSL) and N-octanoyl-homoserine lactone (C8-HSL), was detected. 1