Engineering Consortia by Polymeric Microbial Swarmbots

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Jul 5

PMID 35790722

Authors

Lin Wang

Xi Zhang

Chenwang Tang

Pengcheng Li

Runtao Zhu

Jing Sun

Yunfeng Zhang

Hua Cui

Jiajia Ma

Xinyu Song

Weiwen Zhang

Xiang Gao

Xiaozhou Luo

Lingchong You

Ye Chen

Zhuojun Dai

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Synthetic microbial consortia represent a new frontier for synthetic biology given that they can solve more complex problems than monocultures. However, most attempts to co-cultivate these artificial communities fail because of the winner-takes-all in nutrients competition. In soil, multiple species can coexist with a spatial organization. Inspired by nature, here we show that an engineered spatial segregation method can assemble stable consortia with both flexibility and precision. We create microbial swarmbot consortia (MSBC) by encapsulating subpopulations with polymeric microcapsules. The crosslinked structure of microcapsules fences microbes, but allows the transport of small molecules and proteins. MSBC method enables the assembly of various synthetic communities and the precise control over the subpopulations. These capabilities can readily modulate the division of labor and communication. Our work integrates the synthetic biology and material science to offer insights into consortia assembly and serve as foundation to diverse applications from biomanufacturing to engineered photosynthesis.

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