A computational method is presented that quantifies the effect that specific bacteria in the gut have on the immune system and guides the design of therapeutically potent microbial consortia to cure auto-immune disease.
In a consumer-resource model obeying the physical requirement of flux conservation, metabolic competition between microbes yields consortia of cell types that collectively resist invasion via optimal use of resources.
By joining the Consortium, eLife hopes to save time for more authors, editors and reviewers in the peer review and publication of important neuroscience research.
A model of purely competitive ecological dynamics is shown to be equivalent to adaptive evolution of a single individual, suggesting a new way to formalize the "superorganism" metaphor.
The zebrafish is a premier model organism for biomedical research, with a rich array of tools and genomic resources, and combining these with a fuller appreciation of wild zebrafish ecology could greatly extend its utility in biological research.
