Building communities one bacterium at a time

Weibel, Douglas B.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0810201106

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Porosity in all three dimensions enhances chemical diffusion with the surrounding media, and the containers are mechanically stable, which allows them to withstand transport by pipettes to different dishes or solutions. These cell-loaded containers can also be used as units for aggregative self-assembly (Tien et al 1998;Gu et al 2004), making them relevant for studies involving tissue engineering (Fernandez and Khademhosseini 2010) and the interaction of bacterial colonies (Weibel 2008). To this end, our containers resemble miniaturized micro-Petri dishes or multi-well plates with both enhanced 3D diffusion and the potential for in situ imaging of encapsulated contents.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-folding micropatterned polymeric containers

Azam

Laflin

Jamal

et al. 2010

Biomed Microdevices

158

159

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We demonstrate self-folding of precisely patterned, optically transparent, all-polymeric containers and describe their utility in mammalian cell and microorganism encapsulation and culture. The polyhedral containers, with SU-8 faces and biodegradable polycaprolactone (PCL) hinges, spontaneously assembled on heating. Self-folding was driven by a minimization of surface area of the liquefying PCL hinges within lithographically patterned two-dimensional (2D) templates. The strategy allowed for the fabrication of containers with variable polyhedral shapes, sizes and precisely defined porosities in all three dimensions. We provide proof-of-concept for the use of these polymeric containers as encapsulants for beads, chemicals, mammalian cells and bacteria. We also compare accelerated hinge degradation rates in alkaline solutions of varying pH. These optically transparent containers resemble three-dimensional (3D) micro-Petri dishes and can be utilized to sustain, monitor and deliver living biological components.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-folding micropatterned polymeric containers

Azam

Laflin

Jamal

et al. 2010

Biomed Microdevices

158

159

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“…Similarly in co-cultures, a large number of lower complexity systems have been established, but examples of higher complexity systems remain few and far between and beyond a certain complexity level no defined systems have been established (figure 2). The reasons for this are manifold and have been previously discussed [47]. A larger number of interacting populations increase the possibilities of complex reaction pathways with industrial applications, but also vastly complicates the experimental procedure.…”

Section: Number Of Populations: Complexity Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of studies theoretically investigate existing experimental co-culture systems, showing that there is information to be extracted from these systems that cannot feasibly be done experimentally. Models relying on a large number of variables such as rate constants are suboptimal as this information may not currently be available and difficult to obtain experimentally and parameters obtained from in vitro monoculture are unlikely to be representative of the co-culture context [47]. As in synthetic biology in general, there is a need to integrate the modelling and experimental efforts, though currently lack of experimental data makes model design and validation difficult [99].…”

Section: Models Of Co-cultures To Enable Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-culture systems and technologies: taking synthetic biology to the next level

Goers

Freemont

Polizzi

2014

J. R. Soc. Interface.

502

368

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Co-culture techniques find myriad applications in biology for studying natural or synthetic interactions between cell populations. Such techniques are of great importance in synthetic biology, as multi-species cell consortia and other natural or synthetic ecology systems are widely seen to hold enormous potential for foundational research as well as novel industrial, medical and environmental applications with many proof-of-principle studies in recent years. What is needed for co-cultures to fulfil their potential? Cell-cell interactions in cocultures are strongly influenced by the extracellular environment, which is determined by the experimental set-up, which therefore needs to be given careful consideration. An overview of existing experimental and theoretical co-culture set-ups in synthetic biology and adjacent fields is given here, and challenges and opportunities involved in such experiments are discussed. Greater focus on foundational technology developments for co-cultures is needed for many synthetic biology systems to realize their potential in both applications and answering biological questions.

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“…It also provides an essential tool for fundamental studies on the different mechanisms of microbial interactions [12-16]. Although the approach appears interesting, the stability of these artificial communities is remarkably difficult to achieve for various reasons, as discussed by Weibel [4]. To date, there appears to be only few studies that report on the construction of co-cultures consisting of two or more bacterial species that can stably coexist over a long period of time [17-21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable coexistence of two Caldicellulosiruptor species in a de novo constructed hydrogen-producing co-culture

2010

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BackgroundMixed culture enrichments have been used frequently for biohydrogen production from different feedstock. In spite of the several advantages offered by those cultures, they suffer poor H2 yield. Constructing defined co-cultures of known H2 producers may offer a better performance than mixed-population enrichments, while overcoming some of the limitations of pure cultures based on synergies among the microorganisms involved.ResultsThe extreme thermophiles Caldicellulosiruptor saccharolyticus DSM 8903 and C. kristjanssonii DSM 12137 were combined in a co-culture for H2 production from glucose and xylose in a continuous-flow stirred tank reactor. The co-culture exhibited a remarkable stability over a period of 70 days under carbon-sufficient conditions, with both strains coexisting in the system at steady states of different dilution rates, as revealed by species-specific quantitative PCR assays. The two strains retained their ability to stably coexist in the reactor even when glucose was used as the sole growth-limiting substrate. Furthermore, H2 yields on glucose exceeded those of either organism alone under the same conditions, alluding to a synergistic effect of the two strains on H2 production. A maximum H2 yield of 3.7 mol (mol glucose)-1 was obtained by the co-culture at a dilution rate of 0.06 h-1; a higher yield than that reported for any mixed culture to date. A reproducible pattern of population dynamics was observed in the co-culture under both carbon and non-carbon limited conditions, with C. kristjanssonii outgrowing C. saccharolyticus during the batch start-up phase and prevailing at higher dilution rates. A basic continuous culture model assuming the ability of C. saccharolyticus to enhance the growth of C. kristjanssonii could mimic the pattern of population dynamics observed experimentally and provide clues to the nature of interaction between the two strains. As a proof, the cell-free growth supernatant of C. saccharolyticus was found able to enhance the growth of C. kristjanssonii in batch culture through shortening its lag phase and increasing its maximum biomass concentration by ca. 18%.ConclusionsThis study provides experimental evidence on the stable coexistence of two closely related organisms isolated from geographically-distant habitats under continuous operation conditions, with the production of H2 at high yields. An interspecies interaction is proposed as the reason behind the remarkable ability of the two Caldicellulosiruptor strains to coexist in the system rather than only competing for the growth-limiting substrate.

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Building communities one bacterium at a time

Cited by 17 publications

References 20 publications

Self-folding micropatterned polymeric containers

Self-folding micropatterned polymeric containers

Co-culture systems and technologies: taking synthetic biology to the next level

Stable coexistence of two Caldicellulosiruptor species in a de novo constructed hydrogen-producing co-culture

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