Stress-induced metabolic exchanges between complementary bacterial types underly a dynamic mechanism of inter-species stress resistance

Kapil Amarnath, Avaneesh V. Narla, Sammy Pontrelli, Jiajia Dong, Jack Reddan, Brian R. Taylor, Tolga Caglar, Julia Schwartzman, Uwe Sauer, Otto X. Cordero and Terence Hwa ()
Additional contact information
Kapil Amarnath: U.C. San Diego
Avaneesh V. Narla: U.C. San Diego
Sammy Pontrelli: ETH Zürich
Jiajia Dong: U.C. San Diego
Jack Reddan: U.C. San Diego
Brian R. Taylor: U.C. San Diego
Tolga Caglar: U.C. San Diego
Julia Schwartzman: MIT
Uwe Sauer: ETH Zürich
Otto X. Cordero: MIT
Terence Hwa: U.C. San Diego

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Abstract Metabolic cross-feeding plays vital roles in promoting ecological diversity. While some microbes depend on exchanges of essential nutrients for growth, the forces driving the extensive cross-feeding needed to support the coexistence of free-living microbes are poorly understood. Here we characterize bacterial physiology under self-acidification and establish that extensive excretion of key metabolites following growth arrest provides a collaborative, inter-species mechanism of stress resistance. This collaboration occurs not only between species isolated from the same community, but also between unrelated species with complementary (glycolytic vs. gluconeogenic) modes of metabolism. Cultures of such communities progress through distinct phases of growth-dilution cycles, comprising of exponential growth, acidification-triggered growth arrest, collaborative deacidification, and growth recovery, with each phase involving different combinations of physiological states of individual species. Our findings challenge the steady-state view of ecosystems commonly portrayed in ecological models, offering an alternative dynamical view based on growth advantages of complementary species in different phases.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38913-8 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:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-38913-8

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

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38913-8

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 ().