Screening microbiota for effects on host tissues

Abstract

The assembly and function of microbial communities depends on many factors including the local environment and the metabolic properties of the colonizing organisms. Chemical communications or other secreted factors also play a role and are used by different microbial strains both cooperatively and competitively. The spectrum of microbial secretions have various effects on the microbe's respective hosts, both positive and negative. Thus, characterizing the roles of microbial community members and their secretions can yield key mechanistic insights into microbiome function and can lead to new intervention strategies. Focusing on the simple, yet important functional impact of toxicity, we quantify supernatant dosage responses with image data and examine the morphological effects of microbial secretions on skin-associated host cells. Since the diversity of microbial communities, coupled with the multiplicity of host tissues requires scalable methods, we develop and demonstrate a microfluidic device that enables high-content screening of microbial secretion effects on adherent cell types.

Keywords: cytotoxicity; microfluidics; skin microbiome.