Metatranscriptomic and Thermodynamic Insights into Medium-Chain Fatty Acid Production Using an Anaerobic Microbiome Article Swipe
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· 2018
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00221-18
· OA: W2949304343
Mixed communities of microbes play important roles in health, the environment, agriculture, and biotechnology. While tapping the combined activities of organisms within microbiomes may allow the utilization of a wider range of substrates in preference to the use of pure cultures for biomanufacturing, harnessing the metabolism of these mixed cultures remains a major challenge. Here, we predicted metabolic functions of bacteria in a microbiome that produces medium-chain fatty acids from a renewable feedstock. Our findings lay the foundation for efforts to begin addressing how to engineer and control microbiomes for improved biomanufacturing, how to build synthetic mixtures of microbes that produce valuable chemicals from renewable resources, and how to better understand the microbial communities that contribute to health, agriculture, and the environment.
