An engineered eleven-strain Bacillales synthetic community assembled for aerobic beechwood-lignin degradation in M9 minimal medium. Zhou et al. 2026 screened a 121-strain Bacillales collection with a bottom-up clear-halo lignin-utilization assay and a top-down M9-lignin enrichment, distilled 15 candidates with crystal-violet biofilm and methylene-blue/Azure-B dye-decolorization assays, and retained 11 strains for the lignin-degrading SynCom. The final LDSynCom formed biofilms on lignin particles, accumulated more Folin-Ciocalteu-reactive phenolics than uninoculated and 11B-dropout controls, and produced extracellular proteomes whose lignin-induced proteins included Paenibacillus sp. 11B ring-cleaving dioxygenase candidates.
Taxonomy
Ecological Interactions
The graph shows only explicitly linked interaction participants. Community members without an asserted participant link are omitted; membership alone does not imply an interaction.
LDSynCom lignin-associated phenolic signal
The complete LDSynCom produced a higher Folin-Ciocalteu phenolic signal than uninoculated, 11B-only and 11B-dropout controls in lignin-containing medium. The authors explicitly treat this as an indirect lignin-associated signal, not direct structural depolymerization or a carbon mineralization measurement.
Metabolites: lignin (CHEBI:6457 · MediaIngredientMech · CMMMech)
Evidence
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doi:10.64898/2026.08.24.746789 - SUPPORT (IN_VITRO)"The LDSynCom samples produced significantly higher phenolic signals than the uninoculated control"
Paenibacillus 11B contribution to LDSynCom phenolic accumulation
Removing Paenibacillus 11B reduced community growth and phenolic accumulation relative to the full consortium; 11B alone produced less biomass than the consortium. This supports a contribution to the measured phenotype, not an exclusive depolymerization function or reciprocal benefits to every strain.
Participating Taxa: Paenibacillus sp. 11B
Metabolites: lignin (CHEBI:6457 · MediaIngredientMech · CMMMech)
Evidence
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doi:10.64898/2026.08.24.746789 - SUPPORT (IN_VITRO)"Removing strain 11B from the LDSynCom reduced the overall growth"
LDSynCom lignin-particle biofilm formation
After growth in M9 medium with beechwood lignin, LDSynCom cells formed extracellular-matrix-associated biofilm structures attached to lignin particles.
Metabolites: lignin (CHEBI:6457 · MediaIngredientMech · CMMMech)
Biological Processes:
- biofilm formation (GO:0042710 · PathwayMech)
Evidence
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doi:10.64898/2026.08.24.746789 - SUPPORT (IN_VITRO)"well-developed biofilm structures could be observed attached to the surface of lignin particles"
Associated Datasets
| Dataset | Type | Repository | Accession |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Bacillales collection complete-genome BioProject
NCBI BioProject containing complete genomes for Bacillales strains used to assemble the 11-member LDSynCom. |
GENOMICS | NCBI_BIOPROJECT | PRJNA960711 |
|
LDSynCom Oxford Nanopore tuf amplicon BioProject
NCBI BioProject containing Oxford Nanopore tuf amplicon reads used for Bacillales biofilm community profiling. |
AMPLICON_OTHER | NCBI_BIOPROJECT | PRJNA1505615 |
Knowledge gaps & discussions (3)
INTERPRETATION OPEN Which LDSynCom strains make unique versus redundant causal contributions to lignin-particle biofilm formation and aromatic lignin-product metabolism?
The source reports a targeted 11B dropout and community-level proteomic profiling, but explicitly cautions that roles in the consortium are not strictly partitioned.
Attaches to: ecological_interactions#LDSynCom lignin-associated phenolic signal, ecological_interactions#Paenibacillus 11B contribution to LDSynCom phenolic accumulation
1 evidence item(s)
functional roles within the consortium are not strictly partitioned
Supports keeping strain-specific lignin roles as a knowledge gap rather than asserting a full set of pairwise or exclusive division-of-labor edges.
CURATION_TODO OPEN Can the BioRxiv Table 1 and supplementary endpoints be cached directly once the article server allows follow-up requests?
During curation, BioRxiv Highwire Table 1 and supplementary material endpoints returned HTTP 429 rate-limit responses. The final composition was reconstructed from paper-linked GitHub source spreadsheets, analysis code, and NCBI BioSample records.
KNOWLEDGE_GAP OPEN Do structural chemical assays confirm lignin depolymerization, and does biofilm formation cause that activity?
The preprint explicitly describes A280 and Folin-Ciocalteu assays as indirect. Structural/specific product analyses would distinguish depolymerization from other lignin-associated changes. SEM establishes attached biofilm, not its causal contribution. The targeted 11B dropout does not resolve all strain functions; prior mutualism and dangling-readout removals remain intact.
Attaches to: ecological_interactions#LDSynCom lignin-associated phenolic signal, ecological_interactions#Paenibacillus 11B contribution to LDSynCom phenolic accumulation, ecological_interactions#LDSynCom lignin-particle biofilm formation
External Resources
| Name | Repository | Resource ID |
|---|---|---|
|
Bacillales LDSynCom bioRxiv preprint
DOI landing page for the 2026 bioRxiv preprint reporting bottom-up and top-down Bacillales LDSynCom assembly. |
OTHER | doi:10.64898/2026.08.24.746789 |
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lignin_SynCom_proteomics GitHub repository
Immutable GitHub commit for the paper-linked extracellular proteomics analysis code and source spreadsheets. |
GITHUB | github:Xinming9606/lignin_SynCom_proteomics@ed208e4d5df80c96100f2113db39698832d7b685 |
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Environmental Factors
| Factor | Value | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| beechwood organosolv lignin | 1 | g/L |
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| initial glucose supplement | 0.2 | % w/v |
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Growth Media
Cross-Mech Suite Links
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