ArticleNature communications2022
Engineering consortia by polymeric microbial swarmbots.
Article in Nature communications, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Principles for Rigorous Design and Application of Synthetic Microbial Communities.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Pooled it
- Synthetic microbial communities: emerging live biotherapeutics for targeted gut microbiome modulation.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Why probiotics fail: gut niche tension as the missing variable?Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Programming Bio-Bio Electronic Interfaces for Light-Driven Interspecies Electron Transfer.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Review
- Burden-aware feedback control of microbial consortia.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Synthetic microbial consortia based on quorum-sensing for disease therapy.Bioresources and bioprocessing · 2025Review
- Engineering a Photoautotrophic Microbial Coculture toward Enhanced Biohydrogen Production.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Ecological design of high-performance synthetic microbial communities: from theoretical foundations to functional optimization.ISME communications · 2025Review
- Article
- Resynthesis of synthetic biology techniques: combining engineered bacteria with other antitumour therapies.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Strategies and tools to construct stable and efficient artificial coculture systems as biosynthetic platforms for biomass conversion.Biotechnology for biofuels and bioproducts · 2024Review
- A systematic framework for understanding the microbiome in human health and disease: from basic principles to clinical translation.Signal transduction and targeted therapy · 2024Review
- Engineering Microbial Consortia as Living Materials: Advances and Prospectives.ACS synthetic biology · 2024Review
- Ultrasound-visible engineered bacteria for tumor chemo-immunotherapy.Cell reports. Medicine · 2024Article
- Dynamic Effect of β-Lactam Antibiotic Inactivation Due to the Inter- and Intraspecies Interaction of Drug-Resistant Microbes.ACS biomaterials science & engineering · 2024Article
- Whole-genome sequencing and secondary metabolite exploration of the novelFrontiers in microbiology · 2024Article
- Assessing electrogenetic activation via a network model of biological signal propagation.Frontiers in systems biology · 2024Article
- A Synthetic Signaling Network Imitating the Action of Immune Cells in Response to Bacterial Metabolism.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2023Article
- Spontaneously established syntrophic yeast communities improve bioproduction.Nature chemical biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
16 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Synthetic microbial consortia represent a new frontier for synthetic biology given that they can solve more complex problems than monocultures. However, most attempts to co-cultivate these artificial communities fail because of the winner-takes-all in nutrients competition. In soil, multiple species can coexist with a spatial organization. Inspired by nature, here we show that an engineered spatial segregation method can assemble stable consortia with both flexibility and precision. We create microbial swarmbot consortia (MSBC) by encapsulating subpopulations with polymeric microcapsules. The crosslinked structure of microcapsules fences microbes, but allows the transport of small molecules and proteins. MSBC method enables the assembly of various synthetic communities and the precise control over the subpopulations. These capabilities can readily modulate the division of labor and communication. Our work integrates the synthetic biology and material science to offer insights into consortia assembly and serve as foundation to diverse applications from biomanufacturing to engineered photosynthesis.
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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.