Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons^™

Construction And Analysis Of Three Multi-Partite Synthetic Microbial Communities, Alexander J. Lazzara, Jacob K. Fanning

Honors Theses

Microbial Communities are of interest to molecular biologists hoping to understand the nature of metabolic interactions between co-existing, or possibly mutualistic, organisms. These interactions are ubiquitous in nature, but understanding the molecular mechanisms involved remains challenging and not well understood. Here, we design three tri-partite microbial circuits based on possible interactions among involved microbes, which are discussed and may suggest mutualistic interactions. Carbon and nitrogen molecular pathways and the intracellular metabolism of each microbe is discussed. We present minimal growth media that will ensure that organisms utilize available resources, which may originate from metabolic processes in neighboring microbes, simulating a …