Inter-kingdom signalling: communication between bacteria and their hosts

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Abstract
This Review discusses inter-kingdom hormonal signalling between bacteria and mammals, and between bacteria and plants. Several bacterial signalling compounds alter mammalian and plant gene expression, and signalling transduction mechanisms. Here, the authors show how mammalian hormones serve as signalling molecules that alter bacterial gene expression. The parallels between signalling through receptor kinases in mammals and prokaryotes are also discussed, as well as the role of hormone receptor functional analogues in eukaryotes and bacteria. Bacteria use adrenaline and noradrenaline to regulate several processes, including virulence, and recent discoveries of bacterial functional analogues of adrenergic receptors have shed light on the adrenergic cross-signalling that occurs between microorganisms and their hosts. Host stress signals are used as signalling molecules by microorganisms. In addition to adrenergic signalling, the authors also discuss recent data that show how other mammalian stress signals, such as dynorphin, are used as signalling molecules by bacterial cells to control virulence-gene expression. Inter-kingdom signalling occurs through lipidic compounds that use intracellular mammalian and bacterial receptors. This Review also addresses how bacterial lipidic signalling molecules, such as acyl homoserine lactones, modulate mammalian cell signalling and the immune system. Finally, the authors discuss evolutionary evidence that some metabolism pathways in eukaryotic cells have evolved through horizontal transfer from bacterial genes.

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