Metabolic cross-feeding, in which two or more bacterial genotypes exchange costly metabolites, is very common in the microbial world. Strikingly, two populations that divide their metabolic labour in this way can gain significant fitness advantages relative to cells that produce all metabolites autonomously. Evolutionary theory, however, predicts that individuals should not invest costly resources into non-relatives, but rather cooperate with their own 'kin'. This project will determine the impact of genetic relatedness for the evolution of metabolic cross-feeding interactions and identify the role phenotypic heterogeneity plays during this process.
References:
- List of publications (C. Kost)
Contact details:
Dr. Christian Kost
Research Group Experimental Ecology and Evolution
Department of Bioorganic Chemistry
Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Beutenberg Campus
Hans-Knöll-Straße 8
D-07745 Jena
Tel.: +49-(0)3641 571212
Fax: +49-(0)3641 571202
christiankost(at)gmail.com
Homepage Link
Co-workers:
- Samir Giri (Doctoral student, funded by SPP1617)
References:
Kost
Pande, S., Shitut, S., Freund, L., Westermann, M., Bertels, F., Colesie, C., Bischofs, I. B. and Kost, C. (2015) Metabolic cross-feeding via intercellular nanotubes among bacteria. Nat Commun, 6, 6238.
Pande, S., Merker, H., Bohl, K., Reichelt, M., Schuster, S., de Figueiredo, L. F., Kaleta, C. and Kost, C. (2014) Fitness and stability of obligate cross-feeding interactions that emerge upon gene loss in bacteria. ISME J, 8, 953-962.
D'Souza, G., Waschina, S., Pande, S., Bohl, K., Kaleta, C. and Kost, C. (2014) Less is more: selective advantages can explain the prevalent loss of biosynthetic genes in bacteria. Evolution, 68, 2559-2570.
Bertels, F., Merker, H. and Kost, C. (2012) Design and characterization of auxotrophy-based amino acid biosensors. PLoS ONE, 7, e41349.
Rainey, P. B., Beaumont, H. J. E., Ferguson, G. C., Gallie, J., Kost, C., Libby, E. and Zhang, X.-X. (2011) The evolutionary emergence of stochastic phenotype switching in bacteria. Microb. Cell Fact., 10 Suppl 1, S14.
Beaumont, H. J. E., Gallie, J., Kost, C., Ferguson, G. C. and Rainey, P. B. (2009) Experimental evolution of bet hedging. Nature, 462, 90-93.