Dynamic flux balance analysis for synthetic microbial communities

Dynamic flux balance analysis (DFBA) is an extension of classical flux balance analysis that allows the dynamic effects of the extracellular environment on microbial metabolism to be predicted and optimised. Recently this computational framework has been extended to microbial communities for which the individual species are known and genome-scale metabolic reconstructions are available. In this review, the authors provide an overview of the emerging DFBA approach with a focus on two case studies involving the conversion of mixed hexose/pentose sugar mixtures by synthetic microbial co-culture systems. These case studies illustrate the key requirements of the DFBA approach, including the incorporation of individual species metabolic reconstructions, formulation of extracellular mass balances, identification of substrate uptake kinetics, numerical solution of the coupled linear program/differential equations and model adaptation for common, suboptimal growth conditions and identified species interactions. The review concludes with a summary of progress to date and possible directions for future research.