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Constructing a synthetic microbial community based on Serendipita indica thiamine auxotrophy
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Jiang, Xue (2018) Constructing a synthetic microbial community based on Serendipita indica thiamine auxotrophy. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3439281~S15
Abstract
Natural microbial communities act as metabolic conversion systems in soil, oceans, animal guts and other environments, provide essential nutrition for animals and plants, and drive global biogeochemical cycles. Such functions rely on complex interactions among microbes with different genotypes and metabolic capabilities. In order to achieve a deeper understanding of microbial communities and to further engineer synthetic communities, it is necessary to identify the metabolic interactions among key species, and characterise how these interactions are affected by different environmental factors. Deciphering the physiological basis of species-species and species-environment interactions in spatially organized microbial communities requires bottom-up approaches through assembling ecologically and functionally relevant species.
To this end, the work herein focuses on a defined system to study the metabolic interactions in a spatial context between the plant-beneficial endophytic fungus Serendipita indica and the soil-dwelling model bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Focusing on the growth dynamics of S. indica under defined conditions, it was discovered that this organism was auxotrophic to thiamine, a co-factor for essential reactions in the central carbon metabolism. Furthermore, it was found that the growth of S. indica was restored in thiamine-free media when co-cultured with B. subtilis. However, the success of this auxotrophic interaction was determined by the spatial and temporal organization of this two-species synthetic community; the beneficial impact from B. subtilis to S. indica was only possible when inoculation of B. subtilis was separated from that of S. indica either in time or space. The microscopy analyses were performed and a microfluidic system was developed to investigate the real-time community interaction and fungal growth at single cell level. The time-lapse imaging IV data of interactions between S. indica and B. subtilis as well as S. indica spore germination were analysed, and obtained a fine characterisation of the growth dynamics of S. indica.
The following work described the thiamine auxotrophy of S. indica, the key auxotrophic interaction between S. indica and B. subtilis and the importance of spatial and temporal organization for the success of auxotrophic interactions. These discoveries contribute to the understanding of S. indica growth, allow the controlled investigations of fungal-bacterial interactions and have implications for the engineering of functional synthetic communities with plant beneficial microbes.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QR Microbiology | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Bacillus subtilis, Bacteria -- Ecology, Fungus-bacterium relationships, Fungi -- Ecology | ||||
Official Date: | June 2018 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | School of Life Sciences | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Soyer, Orkun S. ; Schäfer, Patrick | ||||
Sponsors: | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (Great Britain) ; University of Warwick | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | x, 179 leaves : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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