Unraveling interactions in microbial communities - from co-cultures to microbiomes

Justin Tan, Cristal Zuniga, Karsten Zengler

Microorganisms do not exist in isolation in the environment. Instead, they form complex communities among themselves as well as with their hosts. Different forms of interactions not only shape the composition of these communities but also define how these communities are established and maintained. The kinds of interaction a bacterium can employ are largely encoded in its genome. This allows us to deploy a genomescale modeling approach to understand, and ultimately predict, the complex and intertwined relationships in which microorganisms engage. So far, most studies on microbial communities have been focused on synthetic co-cultures and simple communities. However, recent advances in molecular and computational biology now enable bottom up methods to be deployed for complex microbial communities from the environment to provide insight into the intricate and dynamic interactions in which microorganisms are engaged. These methods will be applicable for a wide range of microbial communities involved in industrial processes, as well as understanding, preserving and reconditioning natural microbial communities present in soil, water, and the human microbiome.