Community living causes changes in metabolic behavior and is permitted by specific growth conditions in two bacterial co-culture systems
In 1882, Robert Koch and Fanny Hesse developed the agar plate, which enabled microbiologists to separate individual microbial cells from each other and create monocultures of a single strain of bacteria. This powerful tool has been used in the almost 150 years since to develop a robust understanding of how bacterial cells are structured, how they manage and process their information, and how they respond to the environment to produce behaviors that match their circumstances. We were curious about how the behavior of bacteria, as measured by their gene expression, changes between well-studied monoculture conditions and co-culture. We found that only specific growth conditions permit co-culture and that bacteria change their metabolic strategies in the presence of a partner.
Authors
- Nick V. Pinkham
- Lilah Rahn-Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5332-4477)
- Katherine M. Paine (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3017-4995)
- Sam Fulte (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8206-2948)
- Joseph D. Shih (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6635-216X)
- S. Jesse Lopez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0898-9370)
- Sandra Sánchez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-3866)
- Grace Allen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9066-3785)
- Elizabeth Ellis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8998-5675)
- S A Boylan
- Samantha Thompson
- Sadie Blacketer
- Kayla Burdette
- Audrey Duchscherer
- Alaina Flory
- Kanwar Warya
- Javier Ortiz-Merino
Institutions
- Montana State University (US)
- William Jewell College (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Bacteriology
- Published
- 2025-05-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1128/jb.00075-25
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.43
Funders
- National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka