A novel platform for evaluating the environmental impacts on bacterial cellulose production

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a biocompatible material with versatile applications. However, its large-scale production is challenged by the limited biological knowledge of the bacteria. The advent of synthetic biology has lead the way to the development of BC producing microbes as a novel chassis. He...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Basu, Anindya, Vadanan, Sundaravadanam Vishnu, Lim, Sierin
Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/87385
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/45390
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a biocompatible material with versatile applications. However, its large-scale production is challenged by the limited biological knowledge of the bacteria. The advent of synthetic biology has lead the way to the development of BC producing microbes as a novel chassis. Hence, investigation on optimal growth conditions for BC production and understanding of the fundamental biological processes are imperative. In this study, we report a novel analytical platform that can be used for studying the biology and optimizing growth conditions of cellulose producing bacteria. The platform is based on surface growth pattern of the organism and allows us to confirm that cellulose fibrils produced by the bacteria play a pivotal role towards their chemotaxis. The platform efficiently determines the impacts of different growth conditions on cellulose production and is translatable to static culture conditions. The analytical platform provides a means for fundamental biological studies of bacteria chemotaxis as well as systematic approach towards rational design and development of scalable bioprocessing strategies for industrial production of bacterial cellulose.