Changes in this gene can also be observed in the NCTC 10662 strain which only started to degrade the hydrogels after 48 h and totally after 72 h. This suggests that lasR plays an important role in the regulation of expression of active metalloproteases and thus influences hydrogel degradation. Indeed, it has been shown in literature that deletion or mutation in lasR sequences had a direct impact on virulence factors gene activity.