Tunable light-focusing behavior of engineered bacterial microlenses with controllable shapes.

ABSTRACT: Recently, engineered bacterial cells have been shown to behave as optically-active photonic devices comparable to industrially fabricated microlenses¹. Bacterial cells can be encapsulated within a layer of polysilicate through surface display of the sea sponge enzyme silicatein, which mineralizes a polysilicate coating. The addition of this polysilicate layer significantly enhances the ability of these cells to guide, scatter, and focus light¹. However, this previous technique was limited to creating rod-shaped microlenses, which are not ideal for all applications. Here we expand upon this technology by engineering the shapes of silicatein-displaying bacterial cells. Through the overexpression of the genes bolA ^2-5 and sulA ^6,7 or t

SUBMITTER: Sidor LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12724604 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature