Microbial coexistence through chemical-mediated interactions

Lori Niehaus, Ian Boland, Minghao Liu, Kevin Chen, David Fu, Catherine Henckel, Kaitlin Chaung, Suyen Espinoza Miranda, Samantha Dyckman, Matthew Crum, Sandra Dedrick, Wenying Shou and Babak Momeni ()
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Lori Niehaus: Boston College
Ian Boland: Boston College
Minghao Liu: Boston College
Kevin Chen: Boston College
David Fu: Boston College
Catherine Henckel: Boston College
Kaitlin Chaung: Boston College
Suyen Espinoza Miranda: Boston College
Samantha Dyckman: Boston College
Matthew Crum: Boston College
Sandra Dedrick: Boston College
Wenying Shou: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Babak Momeni: Boston College

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Many microbial functions happen within communities of interacting species. Explaining how species with disparate growth rates can coexist is important for applications such as manipulating host-associated microbiota or engineering industrial communities. Here, we ask how microbes interacting through their chemical environment can achieve coexistence in a continuous growth setup (similar to an industrial bioreactor or gut microbiota) where external resources are being supplied. We formulate and experimentally constrain a model in which mediators of interactions (e.g. metabolites or waste-products) are explicitly incorporated. Our model highlights facilitation and self-restraint as interactions that contribute to coexistence, consistent with our intuition. When interactions are strong, we observe that coexistence is determined primarily by the topology of facilitation and inhibition influences not their strengths. Importantly, we show that consumption or degradation of chemical mediators moderates interaction strengths and promotes coexistence. Our results offer insights into how to build or restructure microbial communities of interest.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10062-x

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