Microfluidic cultivation and analysis tools for interaction studies of microbial co-cultures
[Display omitted] •A major challenge for the investigation of microbial consortia is a lack of analytical tools.•Microfluidic tools are emerging for the analysis of microbial consortia.•Microfluidic cultivation allows to investigate contact-based and contactless interactions.•Microfluidic cultivatio...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Current opinion in biotechnology 2020-04, Vol.62, p.106-115 |
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Hauptverfasser: | , |
Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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Zusammenfassung: | [Display omitted]
•A major challenge for the investigation of microbial consortia is a lack of analytical tools.•Microfluidic tools are emerging for the analysis of microbial consortia.•Microfluidic cultivation allows to investigate contact-based and contactless interactions.•Microfluidic cultivation will expand its full potential in combination with traditional lab-routines.
Microbial consortia are fascinating yet barely understood biological systems with an elusive intrinsic complexity. Studying microbial consortia and the interactions of their members is of major importance for the understanding, engineering and control of synthetic and natural microbial consortia. Microfluidic cultivation and analysis devices are versatile tools for the study of microbial interactions at the single-cell level. While there is a vast amount of literature on microfluidics for the investigation of monocultures only few studies on co-cultures have been conducted in this context. Here we give an overview of different microfluidic single-cell cultivation tools for the analysis of microbial consortia with a focus on their physiology, growth dynamics and cellular interactions. Finally, central challenges and perspectives for the future application of microfluidic tools for microbial consortia investigations will be given. |
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ISSN: | 0958-1669 1879-0429 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.copbio.2019.09.001 |