A Passaged 3-species Synthetic Microbial Community

<p>We constructed <em>de novo</em> a community of three model bacterial species, <em>Vibrio cholerae, Staphylococcus aureus, </em>and <em>Escherichia coli</em>, which all constitutively produce a distinct fluorescent protein. This fluorescence permitted hourly fluorescence tracking over three daily passages.</p> <p>Cells were quantified using a 10&mu;m hemocytometer, imaged in a Nikon ELCIPSE Ti microscope, using a combination of brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. The filters used were GFP for green, YFP for yellow, and dsRed for red fluorescent proteins. Counts from four hemocytometer squares were averaged to quantify each replicate.</p>