Elias Lab University of Minnesota

Quench

Version 0.10

You are an enzyme that silences bacteria by cutting their signal molecules. Catch your metals, split enough signal to be kept, and grow into a better quencher.

Quench

Fitness70

Turn your phone sideways for a bigger board.

Steer with the mouse, a finger or the arrow keys. Dash: click, double-tap or Space. X: shake off metals. P: pause. M: sound.

Stained-glass mosaic of a blue hot spring ringed with orange, with protein shapes and silver steam rising from it.
Quench runs in the browser and needs JavaScript. The ideas behind it are described below.

How to play

  • Catch a metal, then split signals. Without metal, nothing is split. Steer your mouth into glowing signals; hollow ones do not fit yet.
  • Keep towers quiet. A ring fills as a tower nears quorum. Cut the signal around it before it switches on.
  • Dash and streak. Click, double-tap or press Space to dash; no protease can bite you mid-dash. Quick splits in a row earn extra points.
  • Chase gold. Golden signals flee, but pay five times the points.
  • Grow. Spend points on the Enzyme Bench, and pick one of three mutations after each win.
  • Beat the boss. Each chapter ends with a boss you cannot hurt directly. Find its weakness: the intro gives a clue.
  • Spare partners. Signals ringed in light blue belong to a host's partners. Leave them.
  • Go further. Every generation has a challenge, and its last ten seconds pay double.

The science

Bacteria coordinate with small signal molecules, such as acyl-homoserine lactones, whose fatty tails differ from species to species. Lactonases open the lactone ring, so the message is never heard: this is quorum quenching.

Many lactonases need two metal ions, bridged by a lysine that carries a CO₂ group. Reshaping their pocket changes which signals they cut. Read more about our work on bacterial communication.

Bacteria speak other languages too, such as AIPs, AI-2, DSF and PQS, and fungi and phages have signals of their own. Not every conversation should be silenced: partners like the squid's glowing bacteria need theirs.

Engineered lactonases are being studied to keep biofilms off medical devices and ship hulls, and to protect crops and farmed fish. Quench is a teaching game: the chemistry is real, but its numbers are made up for play.