Evolutionary engineering of synthetic microbial consortia in bioproduction

Area of Science:

• Synthetic biology
• Microbial ecology
• Metabolic engineering

Background:

• Microbial consortia offer metabolic advantages over monocultures for bioproduction.
• Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) is a powerful tool for uncovering novel metabolic engineering solutions.
• The synergy between ALE and synthetic microbial consortia in bioproduction is underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review recent advances at the intersection of ALE and synthetic microbial consortia.
• To focus on bottom-up synthetic consortia and co-cultures.
• To explore the potential of inter-community artificial selection strategies.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on ALE and synthetic microbial consortia.
• Analysis of artificial selection at organismal and supra-organismal levels.
• Examination of ecological interactions for community stabilization.

Main Results:

• ALE and synthetic consortia can mutually enhance each other's applicability.
• Artificial selection can shape productive output but may compromise evolvability of costly functions.
• Engineering ecological interactions can stabilize community composition.

Conclusions:

• The combination of ALE and synthetic consortia presents significant opportunities for bioproduction.
• Current approaches often rely on growth-based selection, overlooking other strategies.
• Implementing inter-community artificial selection holds considerable untapped potential for microbial engineering.