Optogenetic Tools for Control of Public Goods in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Recent advances in microbial ecology have highlighted the importance of intercellular interactions in controlling the development, composition, and resilience of microbial communities. In order to better understand the role of these interactions in governing community development, it is critical to be able to alter them in a controlled manner. Optogenetically controlled interactions offer advantages over static perturbations or chemically controlled interactions, as light can be manipulated in space and time and does not require the addition of nutrients or antibiotics. Here, we report a system for rapidly achieving light control of a gene of interest in the important model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae and demonstrate that by controlling expression of the enzyme invertase, we can control cooperative interactions. This approach will be useful for understanding intercellular and interspecies interactions in natural and synthetic microbial consortia containing S. cerevisiae and serves as a proof of principle for implementing this approach in other consortia.