(Optochemical) Control of Synthetic Microbial Coculture Interactions on a Microcolony Level
Alina Burmeister, Qiratt Akhtar, Lina Hollmann, Niklas Tenhaef, Fabienne Hilgers, Fabian Hogenkamp, Sascha Sokolowsky, Jan Marienhagen, Stephan Noack, Dietrich Kohlheyer, Alexander Grünberger
Abstract
strains. Our coculture combines an l-lysine auxotrophic strain together with a l-lysine-producing variant carrying the genetically IPTG-mediated induction of l-lysine production. We implemented two control approaches utilizing IPTG as inducer molecule. First, unmodified IPTG was supplemented to the culture enabling a medium-based control of the production of l-lysine, which serves as the main interacting component. Second, optochemical control was successfully performed by utilizing photocaged IPTG activated by appropriate illumination. Both control strategies were validated studying cellular growth on a microcolony level. The novel microfluidic single-cell cultivation strategies applied in this work can serve as a blueprint to validate cellular control strategies of synthetic mono- and cocultures with single-cell resolution at defined environmental conditions.