Figure 6

Schematic of P. aeruginosa virulence activation pathways due to bacterial sensing of endogenous opioids, a product of host stress. Endogenous opioids are release by host tissues during systemic stress. Dynorphin, a synthetic agonist used to study opioid receptors, activates the transcriptional regulator MvfR, and leads to the expression of its regulated operon pqsABCDE and subsequent downstream products production of HQNO, and PQS, as noted above in the low phosphate signaling pathways (Figure 4). All the above molecular components are represented by state variables in the GMABM, and the directional arrows indicate the presence of state transition rules.