Co-culture is process of culturing two types of cells or tissue in the same medium. Synthetic microbial consortia consisting of microorganisms with different synthetic genetic circuits or divided synthetic metabolic pathway components can exert functions that are beyond the capacities of single microorganisms. However, few consortia of microorganisms with different synthetic genetic circuits have been developed because of bacterial cell ratio and growth environment issues. We study co-cultures that combine multiple heterologous E. coli and co-cultures that combine E. coli and cyanobacteria. We are trying to overcome the challenges of co-culture by using a system that regulates the expression timing and expression level of specific genes.
