Co-culture systems and technologies: taking synthetic biology to the next level

Co-culture techniques find myriad applications in biology for studying natural or synthetic interactions between cell populations. Such techniques are of great importance in synthetic biology, as multi-species cell consortia and other natural or synthetic ecology systems are widely seen to hold enor...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Royal Society interface 2014-07, Vol.11 (96), p.20140065
Main Authors: Goers, Lisa, Freemont, Paul, Polizzi, Karen M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cell Communication
Cell–cell Interaction
Co-Culture
Coculture Techniques
Intercellular Communication
Microbial Consortia
Mixed Cultures
Review
Review Articles
Synthetic Biology
Synthetic Biology - methods
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Co-culture techniques find myriad applications in biology for studying natural or synthetic interactions between cell populations. Such techniques are of great importance in synthetic biology, as multi-species cell consortia and other natural or synthetic ecology systems are widely seen to hold enormous potential for foundational research as well as novel industrial, medical and environmental applications with many proof-of-principle studies in recent years. What is needed for co-cultures to fulfil their potential? Cell–cell interactions in co-cultures are strongly influenced by the extracellular environment, which is determined by the experimental set-up, which therefore needs to be given careful consideration. An overview of existing experimental and theoretical co-culture set-ups in synthetic biology and adjacent fields is given here, and challenges and opportunities involved in such experiments are discussed. Greater focus on foundational technology developments for co-cultures is needed for many synthetic biology systems to realize their potential in both applications and answering biological questions.
ISSN:1742-5689
1742-5662
DOI:10.1098/rsif.2014.0065