Mapping the in vitro metabolic interaction network of a nasal microbiota community
Speaker: Karl Kochanowski (IRTA Cataluna)
Host: Hannes Link (CMFI)
Date & Time: 24.07.2025 | 12:30 – 14:00 Uhr
Venue: Hörsaal 3M07, GUZ
Abstract:
The nasal microbiota play a key role in maintaining respiratory health, and there is a clear need to better understand the interactions between its members. In his talk, Karl Kochanowski will describe how he and his team tackled this need by developing a defined consortium of eight strains representing the most abundant genera in the piglet nasal microbiota. This consortium, which they term Porcine Nasal Consortium (PNC8), enabled them to systematically map the metabolic interaction network between nasal microbiota members. Exometabolomics, spent media experiments, and direct co-cultivation across different conditions all suggest a prevalence of negative metabolic interactions in this community. Nevertheless, there are circumstances where competitors can turn into collaborators, and Karl Kochanowski will highlight their most recent efforts to identify such instances of collaboration experimentally.