Bacteria can depend on their neighbours for essential nutrients, but how widespread are these dependencies? Researchers from DQBM’s Kümmerli Lab and collaborators combined growth experiments with genome analysis to examine 315 Pseudomonas isolates from soil and pond habitats.
Only two isolates required an external amino acid supply, while four others showed delayed growth without supplementation. Three bioinformatic pipelines broadly supported these findings, but sometimes overestimated or underestimated dependencies and could not explain the more complex growth patterns.
The results show that amino acid dependence is rare in this collection. They support a more nuanced view of bacterial metabolic dependencies that considers lifestyle and habitat, while demonstrating the value of combining experiments with computational predictions.