Engineered inter-species amino acid cross-feeding increases population evenness in a synthetic bacterial consortium

In nature, microbes interact antagonistically, neutrally or beneficially. To shed light on the effects of positive interactions in microbial consortia we introduced metabolic dependencies and metabolite overproduction into four bacterial species. While antagonistic interactions govern the wildtype c...

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Published inbioRxiv
Main Authors Ziesack, Marika, Gibson, Travis, Shumaker, Andrew M, Oliver, John Kw, Riglar, David T, Giessen, Tobias W, Dibenedetto, Nicholas V, Lall, Kriti, Hsu, Bryan B, Bry, Lynn, Way, Jeffrey C, Silver, Pamela A, Gerber, Georg K
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Cold Spring Harbor Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press 18.07.2019
Subjects
Amino acids
Cooperation
Gnotobiotic
Syntrophism
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Summary:In nature, microbes interact antagonistically, neutrally or beneficially. To shed light on the effects of positive interactions in microbial consortia we introduced metabolic dependencies and metabolite overproduction into four bacterial species. While antagonistic interactions govern the wildtype consortium behavior, the genetic modifications alleviated antagonistic interactions and resulted in beneficial interactions. Engineered cross-feeding increased population evenness, a component of ecological diversity, in different environments including in a more complex gnotobiotic mouse gut environment. Our findings suggest that metabolite cross-feeding could be used as a tool for intentionally shaping microbial consortia in complex environments.
DOI:10.1101/426171