420: Cell Societies Stay Stable

This episode: Simplified gut communities growing in bioreactors
grow and metabolize reproducibly, with only moderate variations,
even when individual members of the community are absent!


Download Episode (8.2 MB, 11.9 minutes)

Show notes:
Microbe of the episode: Citrobacter virus Merlin

Takeaways
The community of microbes in our guts is highly complex, with
thousands of species all interacting with each other, with our
own cells, and with the contents of our diet. Each region of the
gut has a different collection of microbes as well. Many
questions remain to be answered about the functions and
fluctuations of these communities. How can we study such a
complex system? Which species, if any, are most important for its
continued function?

In this study, a simplified community of only 14 species is grown
repeatedly in bioreactors, and one species at a time is left out
of the community to see what will change in its absence. This
reveals effects different species have on the overall growth,
carbon source consumption, and production of various metabolites
relevant to gut health. Some microbes have large effects, but
none of them appears to be crucial for the overall function and
stability of the community.

Journal Paper:
Gutiérrez N, Garrido D. 2019. Species Deletions from Microbiome
Consortia Reveal Key Metabolic Interactions between Gut Microbes.
mSystems 4:e00185-19.


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Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot
com. Thanks for listening!


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