Engineered living materials grown from programmable Aspergillus niger mycelial pellets

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Engineering
• Mycology
• Synthetic Biology

Background:

• Engineered living materials (ELMs) are gaining traction across disciplines.
• Fungi-based ELMs offer cost-effectiveness and sustainability but face limitations in engineerability and versatility.
• Current methods often require killing cells or co-culturing, restricting material development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a new class of engineerable fungi-based ELMs.
• To create self-supporting living materials with tunable functionality.
• To explore applications in biosensing and sustainable material production.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing programmable *Aspergillus niger* mycelial pellets for ELM fabrication.
• Employing a simple filtration method under ambient conditions.
• Tuning inducible gene expression for melanin biosynthesis to control material color.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated the formation of large-area, self-supporting fungal structures stable even at low pH.
• Fabricated living membrane materials with tunable colors responsive to xylose concentration.
• Confirmed the viability, self-regeneration, and functionality of the ELMs after 3 months of storage.

Conclusions:

• Introduced a novel, engineerable *Aspergillus niger* chassis for constructing ELMs.
• Established a method for producing bulk living materials with tunable properties.
• Highlighted the potential of these fungi-based ELMs for applications including fabrics, packaging, and biosensors.