Challenges and opportunities for engineering of autogenic bionanocellulose: Applications in wearable devices

Bionanocellulose (BNC) produced by symbiotic microbial consortia (SCOBY) has emerged as a biologically-derived material of growing interest for wearable bioelectronics and biosensing technologies. Its hierarchical nanofibrillar architecture combines mechanical compliance, high water affinity, optical transparency, and chemically-addressable surfaces, enabling the formation of stable and functional biointerfaces capable of accommodating diverse recognition and transduction elements. This review establishes a structure-interface-function framework to systematically analyze SCOBY-derived BNC, correlating its multiscale architecture and physicochemical properties with biointerface stability, signal transduction efficiency, and antifouling performance. Within this framework, we critically discuss current strategies for biointerface engineering, including surface chemical modification and the integration of biorecognition elements such as enzymes, antibodies, affinity ligands, and nucleic-acid probes, with particular emphasis on interfacial robustness and resistance to microbial fouling. According to this mechanistic perspective, advances in BNC-based sensing platforms are comparatively evaluated across electrochemical, electrical, optical, and luminescent modalities, including hybrid transduction systems. We further identify key design principles for performance and integration, and assess emerging translational opportunities in wearable, implantable, and point-of-care (POC) systems in view of challenges related to scalability, reproducibility, and system-level integration. Overall, this review provides a unifying framework to guide the rational design of SCOBY-derived BNC for next-generation bioelectronic and biosensing applications.