Abstract
In natural environments microorganisms commonly exist as communities of multiple species that are capable of performing more varied and complicated tasks than clonal populations. Synthetic biologists have engineered clonal populations with characteristics such as differentiation, memory, and pattern formation, which are usually associated with more complex multicellular organisms. The prospect of designing microbial communities has alluring possibilities for environmental, biomedical, and energy applications, and is likely to reveal insight into how natural microbial consortia function. Cell signaling and communication pathways between different species are likely to be key processes for designing novel functions in synthetic and natural consortia. Recent efforts to engineer synthetic microbial interactions will be reviewed here, with particular emphasis given to research with significance for industrial applications in the field of biomining and bioremediation of acid mine drainage.
Highlights
Natural microbial consortia are known to facilitate a wide range of complex tasks such as inter-species biofilm formation that allows microorganisms to persist in inhospitable environments (Keller and Surette, 2006)
The field of synthetic biology has developed a wide range of highly engineered clonal populations of bacteria to perform complex tasks such as differentiation (Süel et al, 2006), memory (Ham et al, 2008), counting (Friedland et al, 2009), and pattern formation (Liu et al, 2011a) as well as industrial applications such as production of antimalarial drug precursors (Ro et al, 2006), fuel like long-chain alcohols (Atsumi et al, 2008), and biosensors for arsenic in drinking water (Stocker et al, 2003)
This review focuses on using microbial isolates to construct consortia that would otherwise not be found together in Nature and discusses the potential use of genetically engineered species in bioremediation and biomining processes
Summary
In natural environments microorganisms commonly exist as communities of multiple species that are capable of performing more varied and complicated tasks than clonal populations. Synthetic biologists have engineered clonal populations with characteristics such as differentiation, memory, and pattern formation, which are usually associated with more complex multicellular organisms. The prospect of designing microbial communities has alluring possibilities for environmental, biomedical, and energy applications, and is likely to reveal insight into how natural microbial consortia function. Cell signaling and communication pathways between different species are likely to be key processes for designing novel functions in synthetic and natural consortia. Recent efforts to engineer synthetic microbial interactions will be reviewed here, with particular emphasis given to research with significance for industrial applications in the field of biomining and bioremediation of acid mine drainage
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