Long-term homeostasis in microbial consortia via auxotrophic cross-feeding

Nicolas E. Grandel, Amanda M. Alexander, Xiao Peng, Caroline Palamountain, Razan N. Alnahhas, Andrew J. Hirning, Krešimir Josić () and Matthew R. Bennett ()
Additional contact information
Nicolas E. Grandel: Physical Biology
Amanda M. Alexander: Department of Mathematics
Xiao Peng: Physical Biology
Caroline Palamountain: Department of Biosciences
Razan N. Alnahhas: Department of Biosciences
Andrew J. Hirning: Department of Biosciences
Krešimir Josić: Department of Mathematics
Matthew R. Bennett: Department of Biosciences

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Synthetic microbial consortia are collections of multiple strains or species of engineered organisms living in a shared ecosystem. Because they can separate metabolic tasks among different strains, synthetic microbial consortia have applications in developing biomaterials, biomanufacturing, and biotherapeutics. However, synthetic consortia often require burdensome control mechanisms to ensure that consortia members remain at the correct proportions. Here, we present a simple method for controlling consortia proportions using cross-feeding in continuous auxotrophic co-culture. We use mutually auxotrophic E. coli with different essential gene deletions and regulate the growth rates of members of the consortium via cross-feeding of the missing nutrients in each strain. We demonstrate precise regulation of the proportions by exogenous addition of the missing nutrients. We also model the co-culture’s behavior using a system of ordinary differential equations that enable us to predict its response to changes in nutrient concentrations. Our work provides a powerful tool for consortia proportion control with minimal metabolic costs to the constituent strains.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63575-z Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-63575-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63575-z

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().