Clostridium fermentations have been developed for producing butanol and other value-added chemicals, but their development is constrained by some limitations, such as relatively high substrate cost and the need to maintain an anaerobic condition. Recently, co-culture is emerging as a popular way to address these limitations by introducing a partner strain with Clostridium. Generally speaking, the co-culture strategy enables the use of a cheaper substrate, maintains the growth of Clostridium without any anaerobic treatment, improves product yields, and/or widens the product spectrum. Herein, we review recent developments of co-culture strategies involving Clostridium species according to their partner stains’ functions with representative examples. We also discuss research challenges that need to be addressed for the future development of Clostridium co-cultures.

梭菌发酵已被开发用于生产丁醇和其他增值化学品，但它们的发展受到一些限制，例如相对较高的底物成本和维持厌氧条件的需要。最近，通过引入具有梭菌的伙伴菌株，共培养正在成为解决这些限制的流行方式。一般来说，共培养策略能够使用更便宜的底物，在没有任何厌氧处理的情况下保持梭菌的生长，提高产品产量，和/或扩大产品范围。在此，我们回顾了涉及梭菌的共培养策略的最新发展物种根据他们的伙伴污渍的功能与代表性的例子。我们还讨论了梭菌共培养未来发展需要解决的研究挑战。