Full factorial construction of synthetic microbial communities
6 affiliations
- 1Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia (CNB), CSIC, 28049 Madrid, Spain
- 2Instituto de Biología Funcional y Genómica (IBFG), CSIC & Universidad de Salamanca, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
- 3Instituto de Productos Lácteos de Asturias (IPLA), CSIC, 33011 Oviedo, Spain
- 4Institute of Functional Biology and Genomics (IBFG-CSIC)
- 5Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos (GISC), Departamento de Matemáticas, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28911 Leganés, Spain
- 6Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Abstract
Constructing combinatorially complete species assemblages is often necessary to dissect the complexity of microbial interactions and to find optimal microbial consortia. At the moment, this is accomplished through either painstaking, labor intensive liquid handling procedures, or through the use of state-of-the-art microfluidic devices. Here we present a simple, rapid, low-cost, and highly accessible liquid handling methodology for assembling all possible combinations of a library of microbial strains, which can be implemented with basic laboratory equipment. To demonstrate the usefulness of this methodology, we construct a combinatorially complete set of consortia from a library of eight Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains, and empirically measure the community-function landscape of biomass productivity, identify the highest yield community, and dissect the interactions that lead to its optimal function. This easy to implement, inexpensive methodology will make the assembly of combinatorially complete microbial consortia easily accessible for all laboratories.
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BibTeX
@article{diazcolunga2026full,
title = {{Full factorial construction of synthetic microbial communities}},
author = {Juan Díaz‐Colunga and Pablo Catalán and Magdalena San Román and Andrea Arrabal and Álvaro Sánchez},
journal = {eLife},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.7554/elife.101906.3},
url = {https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.101906.3},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Full factorial construction of synthetic microbial communities
AU - Juan Díaz‐Colunga
AU - Pablo Catalán
AU - Magdalena San Román
AU - Andrea Arrabal
AU - Álvaro Sánchez
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/19
JO - eLife
DO - 10.7554/elife.101906.3
UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.101906.3
AB - Constructing combinatorially complete species assemblages is often necessary to dissect the complexity of microbial interactions and to find optimal microbial consortia. At the moment, this is accomplished through either painstaking, labor intensive liquid handling procedures, or through the use of state-of-the-art microfluidic devices. Here we present a simple, rapid, low-cost, and highly accessible liquid handling methodology for assembling all possible combinations of a library of microbial strains, which can be implemented with basic laboratory equipment. To demonstrate the usefulness of this methodology, we construct a combinatorially complete set of consortia from a library of eight Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains, and empirically measure the community-function landscape of biomass productivity, identify the highest yield community, and dissect the interactions that lead to its optimal function. This easy to implement, inexpensive methodology will make the assembly of combinatorially complete microbial consortia easily accessible for all laboratories.
SN - 2050-084X
ER -