Developing Cyanobacterial Quorum Sensing Toolkits: Toward Interspecies Coordination in Mixed Autotroph/Heterotroph Communities
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Abstract
High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide There has been substantial recent interest in the promise of sustainable, light-driven bioproduction using cyanobacteria, including developing efforts for microbial bioproduction using mixed autotroph/heterotroph communities, which could provide useful properties, such as division of metabolic labor. However, building stable mixed-species communities of sufficient productivity remains a challenge, partly due to the lack of strategies for synchronizing and coordinating biological activities across different species. To address this obstacle, we developed an inter-species communication system using quorum sensing (QS) modules derived from well-studied pathways in heterotrophic microbes. In the model cyanobacterium, Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 ( S. elongatus ), we designed, integrated, and characterized genetic circuits that detect acyl-homoserine lactones (AHLs), diffusible signals utilized in many QS pathways. We showed that these receiver modules sense exogenously supplied AHL molecules and activate gene expression in a dose-dependent manner. We characterized these AHL receiver circuits in parallel with Escherichia coli W ( E. coli W) to dissect species-specific properties, finding broad agreement, albeit with increased basal expression in S. elongatus . Our engineered “sender” E. coli strains accumulated biologically synthesized AHLs within the supernatant and activated receiver strains similarly to exogenous AHL activation. Our results will bolster the design of sophisticated genetic circuits in cyanobacterial/heterotroph consortia and the engineering of QS-like behaviors across cyanobacterial populations.
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Kokarakis et al. demonstrated the first implementation of heterologous acyl-homoserine lactone quorum-sensing pathways (Lux, Las, and Tra) in S. elongatus PCC 7942, showing that these circuits detect AHL signals in a dose-dependent manner and can link E. coli population density to cyanobacterial gene expression outputs, a framework directly applicable to regulating sucrose secretion and other碳
“Kokarakis et al. demonstrated the first implementation of heterologous acyl-homoserine lactone quorum-sensing pathways (Lux, Las, and Tra) in S. elongatus PCC 7942, showing that these circuits detect AHL signals in a dose-dependent manner and can link E. coli population density to cyanobacterial gene expression outputs, a framework directly applicable to regulating sucrose secretion and other”
From Cyanobacteria as a Photosynthetic Chassis for Metabolic Pathway Engineering with Heterologous Gene Expression (2026) · cites this paper as [111]
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Walshe, J., & Saha, S. K. (2026) · Current Issues in Molecular Biology · doi:10.3390/cimb48060638 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…PCC 7942, showing that these circuits detect AHL signals in a dose-dependent manner and can link E. coli population density to cyanobacterial gene expression outputs, a framework directly applicable to regulating sucrose secretion and other carbon transfer events in synthetic co-cultures [111].”
- Authors
- Kokarakis, E. J., Rillema, R., Ducat, D. C., & Sakkos, J. K.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sakkos, Jonathan K.
- Venue
- ACS Synthetic Biology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2022-12-27
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 265-276
- ISSN
- 2161-5063 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9872165
- OpenAlex
- W4312210860
- Cited by
- 21
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3
- FWCI
- 0.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- ACS Synthetic Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-91ER20021)
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32-GM110523)
- National Science Foundation (1845463)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensing
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Molecular Communication and Nanonetworks
- Keywords
- interspecies communication, Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942, N-acyl homoserine lactones, synthetic gene circuits, Escherichia coli W, bioproduction, metabolic coordination, synthetic biology
- MeSH terms
- Cyanobacteria, Escherichia coli, Quorum Sensing, Acyl-Butyrolactones
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