Engineering living and regenerative fungal–bacterial biocomposite structures
Name
2021_NMaterials_McBee.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
5.4 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
McBee, Ross M
Lucht, Matt
Mukhitov, Nikita
Richardson, Miles
Srinivasan, Tarun
Meng, Dechuan
Chen, Haorong
Kaufman, Andrew
Reitman, Max
Munck, Christian
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Nature Materials
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
McBee, Ross M, Lucht, Matt, Mukhitov, Nikita, Richardson, Miles, Srinivasan, Tarun et al. 2022. "Engineering living and regenerative fungal–bacterial biocomposite structures." Nature Materials, 21 (4).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Engineered living materials could have the capacity to self-repair and self-replicate, sense local and distant disturbances in their environment, and respond with functionalities for reporting, actuation or remediation. However, few engineered living materials are capable of both responsivity and use in macroscopic structures. Here we describe the development, characterization and engineering of a fungal-bacterial biocomposite grown on lignocellulosic feedstocks that can form mouldable, foldable and regenerative living structures. We have developed strategies to make human-scale biocomposite structures using mould-based and origami-inspired growth and assembly paradigms. Microbiome profiling of the biocomposite over multiple generations enabled the identification of a dominant bacterial component, Pantoea agglomerans, which was further isolated and developed into a new chassis. We introduced engineered P. agglomerans into native feedstocks to yield living blocks with new biosynthetic and sensing-reporting capabilities. Bioprospecting the native microbiota to develop engineerable chassis constitutes an important strategy to facilitate the development of living biomaterials with new properties and functionalities.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41563-021-01123-Y
