Engineered cell-to-cell signalling within growing bacterial cellulose pellicles.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial cellulose is a strong and flexible biomaterial produced at high yields by Acetobacter species and has applications in health care, biotechnology and electronics. Naturally, bacterial cellulose grows as a large unstructured polymer network around the bacteria that produce it, and tools to enable these bacteria to respond to different locations are required to grow more complex structured materials. Here, we introduce engineered cell-to-cell communication into a bacterial cellulose-producing strain of Komagataeibacter rhaeticus to enable different cells to detect their proximity within growing material and trigger differential gene expression in response. Using synthetic biology tools, we engineer Sender and Receiver strains of K. rhaeticus to produce and respond to the diffusible

SUBMITTER: Walker KT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6559020 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature