Involved in the synthesis of autoinducer 2 (AI-2) which is secreted by bacteria and is used to communicate both the cell density and the metabolic potential of the environment. The regulation of gene expression in response to changes in cell density is called quorum sensing. Catalyzes the transformation of S-ribosylhomocysteine (RHC) to homocysteine (HC) and 4,5-dihydroxy-2,3-pentadione (DPD).
[1]"Construction of a contiguous 874-kb sequence of the Escherichia coli-K12 genome corresponding to 50.0-68.8 min on the linkage map and analysis of its sequence features."Yamamoto Y., Aiba H., Baba T., Hayashi K., Inada T., Isono K., Itoh T.