Diadenosine tetraphosphate modulated quorum sensing in bacteria treated with kanamycin.

Background: The dinucleotide alarmone diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A), which is found in cells, has been shown to affect the survival of bacteria under stress.

Results: Here, we labeled Ap4A with biotin and incubated the labeled Ap4A with the total proteins extracted from kanamycin-treated Escherichia coli to identify the Ap4A binding protein in bacteria treated with kanamycin. Liquid chromatography‒mass spectrometry (LCMS) and bioinformatics were used to identify novel proteins that Ap4A interacts with that are involved in biofilm formation, quorum sensing, and lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis pathways.