CAREER: Designing Synthetic Anaerobic Consortia for Bioproduction

微生物在复杂、动态的群落中共同工作，在整个地球上循环利用碳，从动物内脏到垃圾填埋场和堆肥堆。为了更好地了解生活在缺氧条件下的瘤胃（动物胃）微生物群落，受大自然的启发，微生物之间将建立新的“合成”伙伴关系，这将使植物废料的可持续化学生产成为可能。新的分离和培养技术将被开发出来，这将有可能导致新的微生物的分离和新的群落的建设与理想的属性从自然界。本科生和研究生、一名博士后、K-12学生和公众将通过课程作业、实验室研究、与圣巴巴拉动物园合作的外展活动，以及一项针对经济困难的西班牙裔学生的科学计划，参与到这些研究中来。该项目对植物生物量分解、气候变化、环境可持续性和碳捕获等方面具有深远的影响。本研究将在瘤胃厌氧菌自然共生的基础上，建立人工合成的微生物联合体。大型食草动物的瘤胃微生物群由四个相互依存的微生物种群（细菌、原生动物、真菌和产甲烷菌）组成，它们共同作用，将粗生物质转化为糖和发酵废物，包括二氧化碳和甲烷。然而，这些微生物的相互依赖性及其对微生物代谢的影响很难表征，因为它们难以培养。最近，通过从食草动物粪便中分离出具有依赖产甲烷菌的真菌，创造了一个简化的系统来模拟它们的合胞作用，克服了这些挑战。将筛选来自食草动物的健壮的真菌-甲烷共生菌，以研究自然界如何配对，以及共培养如何加速生物量分解。稳定的真菌-甲烷菌对将用于生成肠道真菌的代谢模型，该模型将与实验数据相结合。最后，将使用自下而上的方法设计和优化包含非本地微生物（乙酰营养化产甲烷菌和兼性厌氧菌）的相互依存群落，以划分生物量降解和生物产物形成。这项研究将成为与圣巴巴拉动物园建立新的教育合作伙伴关系的焦点，使更广泛的公众了解微生物在我们环境中的重要性。

Microbes work together in complex, dynamic communities that recycle carbon throughout the Earth, from animal guts to landfills and compost piles. In order to better understand rumen (animal stomach) microbial communities which live in the absence of oxygen, new "synthetic" partnerships between microbes will be constructed that are inspired by nature, which will enable sustainable chemical production from plant waste materials. New isolation and culture techniques will be developed which will likely lead to the isolation of novel microorganisms and the construction of novel communities with desirable attributes from nature. Undergraduate and graduate students, a postdoctoral fellow, K-12 students and the public will be integrated into the studies through coursework, laboratory research, outreach in collaboration with the Santa Barbara Zoo, and a science program for economically disadvantaged Hispanic students. This project has far reaching impacts on plant biomass breakdown, climate change, sustainability, and carbon capture in the environment. This research will build synthetic microbial consortia based on the natural syntrophy between rumen anaerobes. The rumen microbiome within large herbivores consists of four interdependent microbial populations (bacteria, protozoans, fungi, and methanogens) that work together to drive crude biomass into sugars and fermentation waste products, including carbon dioxide and methane. However, the interdependency of these microbes and their impact on microbial metabolism are difficult to characterize due to their recalcitrance to culture. Recently, these challenges have been overcome through the isolation of fungi with dependent methanogens from herbivore fecal materials, creating a simplified system to model their syntrophy. Robust fungal-methanogen syntrophs from herbivores will be screened to study how pairs are matched by nature, and how co-culture accelerates biomass breakdown. Stable fungal-methanogen pairs will be used to generate a metabolism model for gut fungi, and the model will be curated with experimental data. Finally, interdependent communities containing non-native microbes (acetotrophic methanogens and facultative anaerobes) will be designed and optimized using a bottom up approach to compartmentalize biomass-degradation and bioproduct formation. This research will serve as the focal point to establish a new educational partnership with the Santa Barbara Zoo that exposes the broader public to the importance of microbes in our environment.