Preliminary study on the co-cultivation of komagataeibacter rhaeticus and escherichia coli to produce hybrid material

• Main Author: Habib Muhammed
• Other Authors: Lim Sierin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Bioengineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75206
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Recently bottom-up fabrication of materials has been a significant focus in materials science. Although a chemical approach to the synthesis of these nanomaterials allows for ease of production and scale-up, the synthesis may require harsh chemicals or energy intensive processes. Biological approaches to material fabrication is a developing research area that aims to use the unique self-assembling properties of living systems to produce materials. One such way could be by co-cultivating different microorganisms to produce a new biomaterial. Bacterial cellulose is an ECM material that is produced in significant quantities by a range of bacteria and one of the genus is Komagataeibacter. Genetically modified Escherichia coli can produce curli fiber. Therefore, this study aims to optimize the process of co-cultivating Komagataeibacter rhaeticus and Escherichia coli to produce a cellulose-curli hybrid material. iGEM was grown in HS medium with 2.0% (w/v) glucose and pellicles formed after 5 days. Pellicles were then dropped into 1L 0.5% arabinose induced E.coli culture medium at both 30°C and 37°C. The BC-curli pellicles were characterized in terms of crystallinity and morphology by various techniques. The successful manufacturing of cellulose-curli hybrid provides a new method of producing sustainable cellulose material.