PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sonali Gupta
AU  - Tyler D. Ross
AU  - Marcella M. Gomez
AU  - Job L. Grant
AU  - Philip A. Romero
AU  - Ophelia S. Venturelli
TI  - Investigating the dynamics of microbial consortia in spatially structured environments
AID  - 10.1101/2020.02.17.953240
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.02.17.953240
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/19/2020.02.17.953240.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/19/2020.02.17.953240.full
AB  - The spatial organization of microbial communities arises from a complex interplay of biotic and abiotic interactions and is a major determinant of ecosystem functions. We design a microfluidic platform to investigate how the spatial arrangement of microbes impacts gene expression and growth. We elucidate key biochemical parameters that dictate the mapping between spatial positioning and gene expression patterns. We show that distance can establish a low-pass filter to periodic inputs, and can enhance the fidelity of information processing. Positive and negative feedback can play disparate roles in the synchronization and robustness of a genetic oscillator distributed between two strains to spatial separation. Quantification of growth and metabolite release in an amino-acid auxotroph community demonstrates that the interaction network and stability of the community are highly sensitive to temporal perturbations and spatial arrangements. In sum, our microfluidic platform can quantify spatiotemporal parameters influencing diffusion-mediated interactions in microbial consortia.