Synchronization of gene expression across eukaryotic communities through chemical rhythms

Abstract

The synchronization is a recurring phenomenon in neuroscience, ecology, human sciences, and biology. However, controlling synchronization in complex eukaryotic consortia on extended spatial-temporal scales remains a major challenge. Here, to address this issue we construct a minimal synthetic system that directly converts chemical signals into a coherent gene expression synchronized among eukaryotic communities through rate-dependent hysteresis. Guided by chemical rhythms, isolated colonies of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae oscillate in near-perfect synchrony despite the absence of intercellular coupling or intrinsic oscillations. Increased speed of chemical rhythms and incorporation of feedback in the system architecture can tune synchronization and precision of the cell responses in a growing cell collectives. This synchronization mechanism remain robust under stress in the two-strain consortia composed of toxin-sensitive and toxin-producing strains. The sensitive cells can maintain the spatial-temporal synchronization for extended periods under the rhythmic toxin dosages produced by killer cells. Our study provides a simple molecular framework for generating global coordination of eukaryotic gene expression through dynamic environment.

Macroscopic control of synchronous electrical signaling with chemically-excited gene expression

“…1A). We chose Mar receptors (consecutively named MarR and IacR)(16, 17) to facilitate dual-chemical perception of phytohormones salicylate acid (SA) and indole acetic acid/auxin (IAA) in the environment (Fig. 1B).…”

“…Molds for the production of microfluidic device (16) were designed in Inkscape and printed on plastic sheets with the monochrome laser printer at 1200dpi resolution as described in (16). A density of Ink deposition was used to control the feature height.…”

“…To address this challenge, we build a synthetic gene regulatory system that is capable of effectively buffering cellular noise, coordinating ion channel expression in the cell populations of the model eukaryote S. cerevisiae. This synthetic system builds upon gene circuits that respond to chemical stimuli (16) through coupled Mar-family receptors (MarR and IacR) (17). These circuits can synchronize cell responses by using a rate-dependent hysteresis mechanism (16).…”

“…This synthetic system builds upon gene circuits that respond to chemical stimuli (16) through coupled Mar-family receptors (MarR and IacR) (17). These circuits can synchronize cell responses by using a rate-dependent hysteresis mechanism (16). Here, we modified these circuits to encode intrinsic excitability (Fig.…”

Seasonality, density dependence and spatial population synchrony

“…These studies are motivated by their potential to provide unique insights into the mechanisms that drive ecological dynamics across a range of spatial scales (Bjørnstad et al, 1999;Koenig, 1999;Walter et al, 2017). The study of spatial population synchrony is one of the fields within ecology that is, both conceptually and methodologically, most tightly linked to other sciences that also deal with spatio-temporal dynamics (Nareddy et al, 2020;Pérez-García et al, 2021). P.A.P.…”