For many years, researchers have studied the social lives of bacteria to understand intra- and inter-species interactions. Cell-cell communication, also known as quorum sensing (QS), is used by bacteria to coordinate their behaviour in response to environmental conditions. The QS system in Streptococcus species is well known to regulate competence. Studies show that Streptococcus pneumoniae has two homologous QS systems: 1) the competence (Com) system that regulates competence; and 2) a bacteriocin-like peptide (Blp) system that regulates the production of bacteriocins. Both functions are widespread in the genus. In S. pneumoniae, the Blp QS system shares a common ancestor and has similar features to the Com QS system. However, the evolutionary relationship between these QS systems remains obscure. SUCRE methodology was developed to identify the QS homologous genes in the streptococcal species. SUCRE uses four complementary approaches: homology search, putative gene finding, regulon co.....

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