Transcriptional regulation of living materials via extracellular electron transfer.

ABSTRACT: Engineered living materials combine the advantages of biological and synthetic systems by leveraging genetic and metabolic programming to control material-wide properties. Here, we demonstrate that extracellular electron transfer (EET), a microbial respiration process, can serve as a tunable bridge between live cell metabolism and synthetic material properties. In this system, EET flux from Shewanella oneidensis to a copper catalyst controls hydrogel cross-linking via two distinct chemistries to form living synthetic polymer networks. We first demonstrate that synthetic biology-inspired design rules derived from fluorescence parameterization can be applied toward EET-based regulation of polymer network mechanics. We then program transcriptional Boolean logic gates to govern EET gene expres

SUBMITTER: Graham AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12225742 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature