Algae are ubiquitous in natural ecosystems and have been studied extensively for biofuel production due to their unique metabolic capabilities. Most studies to date have approached biofuel optimization through synthetic biology and process engineering with few industrial scale projects considering algal community interactions. Such interactions can potentially lead to increased productivity and reduced community invasability, both important characteristics for scalable algal biofuel production. It is estimated that over a million species of algae exist such that elucidating the interactions that might be beneficial for biofuel production remains extremely resource and time intensive. Here we describe a strategy for rapid, high-throughput screening of algal community combinations using a microfluidic platform to generate millions of parallel, nanoliter-scale algal mixed cultures for estimation of biomass accumulation. Model communities were first studied in a bench scale flask experiment and then examined using microfluidic droplets. These experiments showed consistent results for both positively interacting algal bicultures that increase biomass when together, and negatively interacting bicultures that decrease biomass. Specifically, these included enhanced performance of two bicultures, Ankistrodesmus falcatus and Chlorella sorokiniana, Chlorella sorokiniana and Selenastrum minutum, and reduced performance of a biculture consisting of Selenastrum capricornutum and Scenedesmus ecornis. While the ultimate techno-economic feasibility of algal bioproducts hinges on an amalgamation of scientific fields, rapid screening of algal communities will prove imperative for efficiently discovering community interactions.

中文翻译：

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证明微滴中海藻混合培养物的过度生产

藻类在自然生态系统中无处不在，并且由于其独特的代谢能力而被广泛研究用于生物燃料的生产。迄今为止，大多数研究都通过合成生物学和过程工程来实现生物燃料的优化，很少有考虑藻类群落相互作用的工业规模项目。这种相互作用有可能导致生产力提高和社区入侵性降低，这都是可扩展藻类生物燃料生产的重要特征。据估计，存在超过一百万种藻类，因此阐明可能有益于生物燃料生产的相互作用仍然是极其耗费资源和时间的。在这里，我们描述了一种使用微流体平台快速，高通量筛选藻类群落组合的策略，以生成数百万个并行，纳升规模的藻类混合培养物，用于估算生物量积累。首先在实验室规模的烧瓶实验中研究模型群落，然后使用微流体液滴对其进行研究。这些实验对于增加相互作用时增加生物量的正相互作用的藻类双培养物和降低生物量的不利相互作用的双培养物均显示出一致的结果。具体而言，这些措施包括提高了两种双文化的表现，Ankistrodesmus falcatus和小球藻sorokiniana，小球藻sorokiniana和羊角藻，并减少组成的biculture的性能羊角月牙和栅藻ecornis。尽管藻类生物产品的最终技术经济可行性取决于科学领域的融合，但藻类群落的快速筛选对于有效发现群落间相互作用至关重要。