posted on 2024-01-02, 19:36authored byXingwen Chen, Changhan He, Qi Zhang, Samat Bayakmetov, Xiao Wang
Complex and fluid
bacterial community compositions are
critical
to diversity, stability, and function. However, quantitative and mechanistic
descriptions of the dynamics of such compositions are still lacking.
Here, we develop a modularized design framework that allows for bottom-up
construction and the study of synthetic bacterial consortia with different
topologies. We showcase the microbial consortia design and building
process by constructing amensalism and competition consortia using
only genetic circuit modules to engineer different strains to form
the community. Functions of modules and hosting strains are validated
and quantified to calibrate dynamic parameters, which are then directly
fed into a full mechanistic model to accurately predict consortia
composition dynamics for both amensalism and competition without further
fitting. More importantly, such quantitative understanding successfully
identifies the experimental conditions to achieve coexistence composition
dynamics. These results illustrate the process of both computationally
and experimentally building up bacteria consortia complexity and hence
achieve robust control of such fluid systems.