Metabolic Heterogeneity in Microbial Populations

Metabolic niches and cross-feeding are common features of multi-species microbial communities. Phenotypic differentiation has also been observed in clonal populations since the days of early microscopy, as exemplified by the identification of sporulation, stalk cell formation, genetic competence, conjugation and other processes, but the role and prevalence of metabolic heterogeneity and cell-cell interactions in clonal populations is only recently gaining appreciation. Such heterogeneity, in which cells of a single origin cooperate with each other through metabolic or other interactions raises many important questions: What is the role provided by such organization? Which regulatory mechanisms coordinate these different cell types? Are certain interaction types conserved across species? Understanding the guiding principles that control metabolic heterogeneity has a wide impact on our understanding of communities that are important for health, industry and the environment.

This Research Topic will explore the role and regulation of bacterial interactions in clonal populations, with the aim of publishing examples of newly discovered interactions, the mechanisms by which interactions are controlled, the organizing principles of communities, and new tools that are used to disentangle signals from multiple community members. The ultimate goal is to provide a framework for thinking about the benefits afforded by multicellular organization and defining recurring themes in the way communities are structured.

This Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Reviews and Mini Reviews, Perspectives, and Hypothesis and Theory papers capturing the latest efforts aimed at characterizing and understanding the function of phenotypic and evolved heterogeneity in microbial communities. Topics will include new findings and hypotheses about the role of heterogeneity with special emphasis on interactions between cell types, the regulation and evolution of interacting cellular populations, new techniques that allow identification of heterogeneity including microscopy, microfluidics, flow cytometry, single-cell RNAseq, and modeling of interactions in heterogeneous communities, and review and insight about the current and future work in the field of community heterogeneity.