title: Principles for designing synthetic microbial communities.
abstract: Advances in synthetic biology to build microbes with defined and controllable properties are enabling new approaches to design and program multispecies communities. This emerging field of synthetic ecology will be important for many areas of biotechnology, bioenergy and bioremediation. This endeavor draws upon knowledge from synthetic biology, systems biology, microbial ecology and evolution. Fully realizing the potential of this discipline requires the development of new strategies to control the intercellular interactions, spatiotemporal coordination, robustness, stability and biocontainment of synthetic microbial communities. Here, we review recent experimental, analytical and computational advances to study and build multi-species microbial communities with defined functions and behavior for various applications. We also highlight outstanding challenges and future directions to advance this field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA; Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Nathan I
authors.initials: NI
authors.lastname: Johns
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA; Integrated Program in Cellular, Molecular and Biomedical Studies, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Tomasz
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Blazejewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Antonio Lc
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Gomes
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA; Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA. Electronic address: hw2429@columbia.edu.
authors.forename: Harris H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D001709:Biotechnology; D017753:Ecosystem; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D059013:Microbial Consortia / Q000235:genetics*; D056265:Microbial Interactions / Q000502:physiology*; D030781:Organisms, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*