Quorum sensing: its role in microbial social networking

Twentieth century observed a huge paradigm shift in the field of sociobiology, which moved from social intelligence of animals to microbes. Quorum Sensing Molecules (QSMs) are the small chemical molecules, which establish the mode of communication among microbes, and is called Quorum Sensing (QS). These molecules are crucial for determining the decisions of large groups of cells, which is a density-dependent process. Thus, this mechanism draws a very thin line between bacteria that are actually prokaryotes and clustered bacteria mimicking eukaryotes. This review discusses about the designs of microbial communication networks, and the role of QS in plant–microbe interaction.