Optogenetic spatial patterning of cooperation in yeast populations

Matthias Bec, Sylvain Pouzet, Céline Cordier, Simon Barral, Vittore Scolari, Benoit Sorre, Alvaro Banderas () and Pascal Hersen ()
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Matthias Bec: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Sylvain Pouzet: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Céline Cordier: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Simon Barral: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Vittore Scolari: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Benoit Sorre: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Alvaro Banderas: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie
Pascal Hersen: Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, CNRS UMR168, Laboratoire Physico Chimie Curie

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Microbial communities are shaped by complex metabolic interactions such as cooperation and competition for resources. Methods to control such interactions could lead to major advances in our ability to better engineer microbial consortia for synthetic biology applications. Here, we use optogenetics to control SUC2 invertase production in yeast, thereby shaping spatial assortment of cooperator and cheater cells. Yeast cells behave as cooperators (i.e., transform sucrose into hexose, a public good) upon blue light illumination or cheaters (i.e., consume hexose produced by cooperators to grow) in the dark. We show that cooperators benefit best from the hexoses they produce when their domain size is constrained between two cut-off length-scales. From an engineering point of view, the system behaves as a bandpass filter. The lower limit is the trace of cheaters’ competition for hexoses, while the upper limit is defined by cooperators’ competition for sucrose. Cooperation mostly occurs at the frontiers with cheater cells, which not only compete for hexoses but also cooperate passively by letting sucrose reach cooperators. We anticipate that this optogenetic method could be applied to shape metabolic interactions in a variety of microbial ecosystems.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44379-5

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