This proposal suggests redefining synthetic communities as defined microbial communities to improve clarity in microbial research terminology.
Consortia of microbial isolates, also known as synthetic communities (SynComs), are increasingly used to study and harness microbe-microbe and microbe-host interactions. Since “synthetic” potentially evokes negative connotations, we propose adopting the term “Defined Microbial Community” for practical applications.
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Koch et al. (2026) studied this question.
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