Patterned Biofilms for Engineering Microbial Consortia

Over the past decade, synthetic biology has developed increasingly robust gene networks within single bacterial cells, but relatively few systems have demonstrated engineered multicellular behaviour. In contrast, naturally existing terrestrial bacteria primarily live in complex surface-attached communities known as biofilms. Within these biofilms, multiple distinct microbial sub-populations form intricate spatial structures including colony co-localization and cell-cell co-aggregation. This spatial organization allows bacterial communities to achieve cooperative behaviours such as metabolic division-of-labour, and conversely, ecological interactions between different microbial subpopulations in turn influence the spatial patterning within the biofilm. Using optogenetic, metabolic, and cell-adhesion tools from synthetic biology, we are developing a biofilm culture platform that can generate optically patterned, metabolically interacting microbial communities. The platform will provide spatiotemporal control of both cell-surface and cell-cell attachment, tunable for both strength and specificity, as well as adjustable regulation of intercellular metabolic interactions. Taken together, these represent new tools to investigate how spatiotemporal patterning develops in biofilms and to engineer synthetic microbial consortia capable of complex tasks requiring biological division of labour.