Bacterial Quorum Sensing as a Networked Decision System

Quorum sensing plays a significant role in infection, biofilm production and potentially can impact the design of microbial fuel cells in the future. Herein, a production of public-goods interpretation is employed to introduce a novel optimization-based model for bacterial quorum sensing. In this model, each bacterium cell act as a decision-maker seeking to maximize a pay-off function under the uncertainty on the concentration of the colony population. First, the design of a socially optimal strategy profile is considered, where all the cells employ the same threshold strategy. Second, the probability of not activating while the quorum is being formed is analyzed; this phenomenon is known in the literature as cheating. Lastly, preliminary results are presented that establish a connection between the new decision-making model with experimental data.