Programmable living assembly of materials by bacterial adhesion

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Synthetic Biology
• Biotechnology

Background:

• Engineered living materials leverage biological systems for novel functionalities.
• Programmed bacterial self-assembly via engineered adhesion is a promising strategy.
• Existing methods lack self-healing properties and versatile functionalization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To engineer self-healing living materials with versatile functions using programmed bacterial adhesion.
• To develop a scalable approach for creating genetically editable and self-healable living functional materials.
• To demonstrate the application of these materials in wearable sensors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized bacteria engineered with outer membrane-anchored nanobody-antigen pairs for controlled adhesion.
• Developed a method for processing these adhering bacteria into functional materials termed LAMBA (living assembled material by bacterial adhesion).
• Functionalized LAMBA with extracellular moieties and tested self-healing properties under mechanical stress.

Main Results:

• Successfully created LAMBA with programmable self-assembly and functionalization capabilities (up to 545 amino acids).
• Demonstrated rapid self-healing and recovery of LAMBA under stretching and bending.
• Fabricated wearable LAMBA sensors capable of detecting bioelectrical and biomechanical signals.

Conclusions:

• Established a scalable method for producing genetically editable, self-healable living functional materials.
• LAMBA offers a versatile platform for applications in biomanufacturing, bioremediation, and soft bioelectronics.
• The self-healing property of LAMBA enables robust performance in wearable sensing applications.