The genetic basis for adaptation of model-designed syntrophic co-cultures
Fig 9
Community ME-model-predicted growth rates computed with fractional strain abundances of ΔhisD ranging from 0 to 1. (A) The effect of metabolite cross-feeding on community structure. Each curve was computed after allowing each of the metabolites in the legend to exclusively be cross-fed to the MSE strain. Curves with identical computationally-predicted optimal strain abundances were grouped and given the same color. (B) The effect of varying the proteome efficiency of metabolite export on community structure (see Methods). The analysis was performed on models constrained to only cross-feed the metabolite that was considered most likely to be cross-fed to the ΔgltAΔprpC, ΔpyrC, and ΔgdhAΔgltB strains in vivo based on the sequencing data (2-oxoglutarate, orotate, and L-glutamate, respectively) (Table 2). (C) Box plots of experimentally inferred fractional strain abundances for each sample (bottom two rows, gray and dark blue) and the computationally-predicted optimal strain abundances following variation in the cross-feeding metabolite (top row, blue) and in strain proteome efficiency (second and third row, red and yellow).