ArticleThe ISME journal2017
Microbial mutualism dynamics governed by dose-dependent toxicity of cross-fed nutrients.
Article in The ISME journal, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 100 citations in OpenAlex.
- Engineering an asymmetric cross-feeding consortium inSynthetic and systems biotechnology · 2026Article
- Reciprocal cross-feeding between bacteria can limit the emergence of metabolic dependencies.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Nitrogenase regulation inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Synthetic Biology of Plants and Microbes for Agriculture, Environment, and Future Applications.Chemical reviews · 2026Review
- Bacteriophage-mediated cell lysis externalizes a metabolically valuable nutrient to broadly modulate bacterial communities.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Context-dependent siderophore exploitability shapes microbial community structure.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Aztreonam intervention recalibrates microbial interactions between Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Streptococcus salivarius.BMC microbiology · 2025Article
- Strengthen or Weaken: Evolutionary Directions of Cross-Feeding After Formation.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Review
- Advances in synthetic microbial ecosystems approach for studying ecological interactions and their influencing factors.Engineering microbiology · 2025Review
- Microbial cross-feeding stabilized by segregation of a dependent mutant from its independent ancestor.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Engineering natural microbiomes toward enhanced bioremediation by microbiome modeling.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Oxidative stress changes interactions between 2 bacterial species from competitive to facilitative.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Bacterial adenine cross-feeding stems from a purine salvage bottleneck.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Two-tiered mutualism improves survival and competitiveness of cross-feeding soil bacteria.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- A purine salvage bottleneck leads to bacterial adenine cross-feeding.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Review
- SCNIC: Sparse correlation network investigation for compositional data.Molecular ecology resources · 2023Article
- Article
- Classifying Interactions in a Synthetic Bacterial Community Is Hindered by Inhibitory Growth Medium.mSystems · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microbial interactions, including mutualistic nutrient exchange (cross-feeding), underpin the flow of energy and materials in all ecosystems. Metabolic exchanges are difficult to assess within natural systems. As such, the impact of exchange levels on ecosystem dynamics and function remains unclear. To assess how cross-feeding levels govern mutualism behavior, we developed a bacterial coculture amenable to both modeling and experimental manipulation. In this coculture, which resembles an anaerobic food web, fermentative Escherichia coli and photoheterotrophic Rhodopseudomonas palustris obligately cross-feed carbon (organic acids) and nitrogen (ammonium). This reciprocal exchange enforced immediate stable coexistence and coupled species growth. Genetic engineering of R. palustris to increase ammonium cross-feeding elicited increased reciprocal organic acid production from E. coli, resulting in culture acidification. Consequently, organic acid function shifted from that of a nutrient to an inhibitor, ultimately biasing species ratios and decreasing carbon transformation efficiency by the community; nonetheless, stable coexistence persisted at a new equilibrium. Thus, disrupting the symmetry of nutrient exchange can amplify alternative roles of an exchanged resource and thereby alter community function. These results have implications for our understanding of mutualistic interactions and the use of microbial consortia as biotechnology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.