Investigating the dynamics of microbial consortia in spatially structured environments

Sonali Gupta, Tyler D. Ross, Marcella M. Gomez, Job L. Grant, Philip A. Romero and Ophelia S. Venturelli ()
Additional contact information
Sonali Gupta: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Tyler D. Ross: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Marcella M. Gomez: University of California Santa Cruz
Job L. Grant: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Philip A. Romero: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ophelia S. Venturelli: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: ABSTRACT The spatial organization of microbial communities arises from a complex interplay of biotic and abiotic interactions, and is a major determinant of ecosystem functions. Here we design a microfluidic platform to investigate how the spatial arrangement of microbes impacts gene expression and growth. We elucidate key biochemical parameters that dictate the mapping between spatial positioning and gene expression patterns. We show that distance can establish a low-pass filter to periodic inputs and can enhance the fidelity of information processing. Positive and negative feedback can play disparate roles in the synchronization and robustness of a genetic oscillator distributed between two strains to spatial separation. Quantification of growth and metabolite release in an amino-acid auxotroph community demonstrates that the interaction network and stability of the community are highly sensitive to temporal perturbations and spatial arrangements. In sum, our microfluidic platform can quantify spatiotemporal parameters influencing diffusion-mediated interactions in microbial consortia.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16200-0 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:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16200-0

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16200-0

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 ().