Bacteria exist as communities in diverse multispecies environments. Quorum sensing, a process for cell–cell communication, allows individual bacteria to glean information about their surroundings and coordinate activities with their neighbors. Recent studies indicate the importance of quorum sensing in microbiomes, but many questions remain regarding how quorum sensing may influence the composition and function of these communities. Synthetic biology, a field where scientists seek to design biological systems with predictable behavior, may provide tools to probe and manipulate quorum sensing behavior in natural consortia. In parallel, quorum sensing processes can be used as a tool in synthetic biology to construct synthetic cocultures with desired behavior. Here, we review recent synthetic biology strategies for manipulating quorum sensing processes in microbial consortia.

细菌作为社区存在于多种多样的环境中。群体感应是一种用于细胞间通信的过程，它使单个细菌能够收集有关其周围环境的信息并协调与其邻居的活动。最近的研究表明群体感应在微生物群落中的重要性，但是关于群体感应如何影响这些群落的组成和功能仍然存在许多问题。合成生物学是科学家寻求设计具有可预测行为的生物系统的领域，它可以提供工具来探测和操纵自然聚居群中的群体感应行为。同时，群体感应过程可用作合成生物学中的工具，以构建具有所需行为的合成共培养物。这里，