The roles of ‘cell-to-cell communication’ in phycosphere

Abstract:

There are complementary and competitive relationship among microorganisms in phycosphere for achieving nutrients, producing active substances and interactions. This leads to microbial symbiosis, competition, and cooperation under environmental stress, and toward to form a distinguished microbial ecological environment. The basic of such behaviors are the cell-to-cell communication among microorganisms, with signal molecules as the mediators. In this review, we systematically introduced the present researches relate to the phycosphere characteristics, cell-to-cell communication and the mechanism underlying signaling molecules transportation. Especially, we discussed the bottle-neck issues on understanding the trace signal molecules. We also verified the effects of gram-negative bacteria and microalgae phycosphere signal molecules on the regulation of microalgae gene expression pathways, based on the current research status of cell-to-cell communication in the phycosphere. Finally, research limitations on cell-to-cell communication in the phycosphere was summarized, and potential further studies were indicated. This work aimed to stimulate some ideas on the microbial ecology in phycosphere and microalgae biomass energy production.