Investigating the dynamics of microbial consortia in spatially structured environments

The spatial organization of microbial communities arises from a complex interplay of biotic and abiotic interactions, and is a major determinant of ecosystem functions. Here we design a microfluidic platform to investigate how the spatial arrangement of microbes impacts gene expression and growth. We elucidate key biochemical parameters that dictate the mapping between spatial positioning and gene expression patterns. We show that distance can establish a low-pass filter to periodic inputs and can enhance the fidelity of information processing. Positive and negative feedback can play disparate roles in the synchronization and robustness of a genetic oscillator distributed between two strains to spatial separation. Quantification of growth and metabolite release in an amino-acid auxotroph community demonstrates that the interaction network and stability of the community are highly sensitive to temporal perturbations and spatial arrangements. In sum, our microfluidic platform can quantify spatiotemporal parameters influencing diffusion-mediated interactions in microbial consortia. The spatial organisation of microbial communities is caused by the interplay of biotic and abiotic factors. Here the authors design a microfluidic platform to quantify the spatiotemporal parameters influencing diffusion-mediated interactions, and use this device to investigate information transmission and metabolic cross-feeding in synthetic microbial consortia.