Cell death in<i>Streptococcus mutans</i>â biofilms: a link between CSP and extracellular DNA
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Streptococcal competence-stimulating peptides (CSPs) were once thought to passively communicate population density in a process known classically as quorum sensing. However, recent evidence has shown that these peptides may also be inducible 'alarmones,' capable of conveying sophisticated messages in a population including the induction of altruistic cellular suicide under stressful conditions. We have previously characterized the alarmone response in Streptococcus mutans, a cariogenic resident of the oral flora, in which a novel bacteriocin-like peptide causes cell death in a subset of the population. Our objective in this work was to characterize the mechanism of immunity to cell death in S. mutans. Toward this goal, we have identified the conditions under which immunity is induced, and identified the regulatory system responsible for differential (and protective) expression of immunity. We also showed that CSP-induced death contributes to S. mutans biofilm formation through the release of chromosomal DNA into the extracellular matrix, providing a long sought-after mechanistic explanation for the role of CSP in S. mutans biofilm formation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".