The concept of labor division and multi-module cooperation of microbial consortia offers it promising potentials in various areas

such as the utilization of complex substrates

synthesis of natural compounds with long metabolic pathways and remediation of environmental pollutants within a hostile environment. Consequently

synthetic microbial consortia represent a new frontier for synthetic biology because they can solve more complex problems than monocultures. However

current research on microbial consortia often involves the simple mixing of multiphase systems

where strains are co-cultured sequentially or individually cultured and then mixed-cultured. The instability and low efficiency of microbial consortia systems hindered their practical application. To construct a stable and efficient microbial consortium

it is essential to consider the different growth and metabolic characteristics of strains

the competition for various nutrients as well as the complex carbon

energy and signaling dynamics within the system. In this review

we provide a progressive strategy for constructing a stable and efficient microbial consortium system across three stages: compromised stage (work together)

microenvironment-oriented stage (work better)

and metabolite delivery-enhanced stage (work best). The detailed methods and points for attention of each stage are summarized

with a highlight on the technical bottleneck and application limitations. Through the integration of interdisciplinary strategies

such as materials science and mathematical models

the goal of building a stable and efficient microbial consortium is constantly advanced.