Ecological perspectives on synthetic biology: insights from microbial population biology
Por:
Escalante A.E., Rebolleda-Gómez M., Benítez M., Travisano M.
Publicada:
26 feb 2015
Resumen:
The metabolic capabilities of microbes are the basis for many major
biotechnological advances, exploiting microbial diversity by selection
or engineering of single strains. However, there are limits to the
advances that can be achieved with single strains, and attention has
turned toward the metabolic potential of consortia and the field of
synthetic ecology. The main challenge for the synthetic ecology is that
consortia are frequently unstable, largely because evolution by
constituent members affects their interactions, which are the basis of
collective metabolic functionality. Current practices in modeling
consortia largely consider interactions as fixed circuits of chemical
reactions, which greatly increases their tractability. This
simplification comes at the cost of essential biological realism,
stripping out the ecological context in which the metabolic actions
occur and the potential for evolutionary change. In other words,
evolutionary stability is not engineered into the system. This
realization highlights the necessity to better identify the key
components that influence the stable coexistence of microorganisms.
Inclusion of ecological and evolutionary principles, in addition to
biophysical variables and stoichiometric modeling of metabolism, is
critical for microbial consortia design. This review aims to bring
ecological and evolutionary concepts to the discussion on the stability
of microbial consortia. In particular, we focus on the combined effect
of spatial structure (connectivity of molecules and cells within the
system) and ecological interactions (reciprocal and non-reciprocal) on
the persistence of microbial consortia. We discuss exemplary cases to
illustrate these ideas from published studies in evolutionary biology
and biotechnology. We conclude by making clear the relevance of
incorporating evolutionary and ecological principles to the design of
microbial consortia, as a way of achieving evolutionarily stable and
sustainable systems.
Filiaciones:
Escalante A.E.:
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Lab Nacl Ciencias Sostenibilidad, Dept Ecol, Biodiversidad Inst Ecol, Mexico City 04510, DF, Mexico
Rebolleda-Gómez M.:
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, United States
Benítez M.:
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Ctr Ciencias Complejidad, Mexico City 04510, DF, Mexico
Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Lab Nacl Ciencias Sostenibilidad, Dept Ecol, Biodiversidad Inst Ecol, Mexico City 04510, DF, Mexico
Travisano M.:
Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, United States
Biotechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, United States
Gold
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