Division of labor for substrate utilization in natural and synthetic microbial communities

Abstract

In natural ecosystems, microorganisms live in communities where each member interacts with the others and with the environment to efficiently utilise available resources. Division of Labor (DOL) is an evolutionary strategy that evolved by microbial communities to accomplish complex tasks. Current bio-based technologies could also benefit from DOL in microbial communities to construct robust microbial cell factories with expanded metabolic capabilities. Here, we review some remarkable examples of how DOL is used by natural microbial consortia to utilize a range of substrates. Also, we review the most recent studies towards engineering DOL to design synthetic consortia for efficient substrate utilization for bioproduction.