Community composition drives metabolic competition and Staphylococcus aureus colonization resistance in synthetic nasal communities.

Community composition, especially the presence of specific Corynebacterium propinquum strains, predicts exclusion of Staphylococcus aureus in synthetic nasal communities.

• Why it matters: Understanding how nasal microbiome assembly influences colonization resistance is crucial for developing strategies to prevent S. aureus infections, yet these mechanisms are poorly understood.
• What they did: Researchers constructed 50 synthetic communities with 5 to 10 nasal bacterial species, tracking their composition, S. aureus growth, metabolic profiles, and interactions across serial passages.
• The result: Communities dominated by C. propinquum excluded S. aureus through nutrient competition mechanisms like siderophore utilization and amino acid limitation, highlighting nutrient-dependent microbial interactions as key to pathogen exclusion.