Building microbial synthetic communities: get inspired by the design of synthetic plant communities

Abstract

In the last decade, the generation of host-associated microbial culture collections has allowed the fine disentangling of complex relationships between commensal microbes and their hosts, and within-microbiota interactions. Specifically, these culture collections have been used to construct microbial synthetic communities (SynComs), which allow the reconstruction of host microbiota in laboratory conditions. In three recent perspective publications, the importance of this tool has been highlighted, and the ground rules of utilization and designing of such SynComs have been laid out. It is important to note that although microbial SynComs are used to understand intricate ecological interactions occurring in natural conditions, the intraspecific genetic diversity present in natural microbial communities has been seldom considered in the design of interspecific microbial SynComs so far. In this Viewpoint, we therefore argue that designing microbial SynComs could benefit from recent developments in the design of synthetic plant communities, or plant SynComs. For instance, considering intraspecific plant genetic diversity and its effects on intra- and interspecific plant–plant interactions appears essential to better understand and predict highly productive and stable plant communities. Therefore, considering genetic diversity within microbial species undoubtedly represents an exciting opportunity to design innovative microbial SynComs.