RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Growth-Altering Microbial Interactions Are Highly Sensitive to Environmental Context
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 079251
DO 10.1101/079251
A1 Angela Liu
A1 Anne Archer
A1 Matthew B. Biggs
A1 Jason A. Papin
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/04/079251.abstract
AB Microbial interactions are ubiquitous in nature, and equally as relevant to human wellbeing as the identities of the interacting microbes. However, microbial interactions are difficult to measure and characterize. Furthermore, there is growing evidence that they are not fixed, but dependent on environmental context. We present a novel workflow for inferring microbial interactions that integrates semi-automated image analysis with a colony stamping mechanism, with the overall effect of improving throughput and reproducibility of colony interaction assays. We apply our approach to infer interactions among bacterial species associated with the normal lung microbiome, and how those interactions are altered by the presence of benzo[a]pyrene, a carcinogenic compound found in cigarettes. We found that the presence of this single compound changed the interaction network, demonstrating that microbial interactions are indeed highly dynamic and responsive to environmental context.