Unraveling the relationship between population composition and metabolite induction in high-precision cellulosic bacterial-fungal co-cultivations.

Balanced co-cultures of Trichoderma reesei RUT-C30 and Streptomyces coelicolor A3(2) on crystalline cellulose induce the highest number of metabolites versus axenic cultures.

• Why it matters: Bioactive compound production in microbial partnerships depends on how community composition shapes metabolite induction, especially under carbon-limited, natural-habitat-like interactions.
• What they did: The study combined high-throughput online fluorescence monitoring of population dynamics with LC-MS/MS metabolomics to profile cultures and identify metabolites specifically induced during co-cultivation.
• The result: Co-cultivation linked population ratios to induction patterns, including biotransformation of dimerumic acid into eleutherazine B and talarazine A, and revealed a strongly induced withanolide-like metabolite cluster.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.