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      3D printing of bacteria into functional complex materials

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          Abstract

          3D printing of bacteria-laden hydrogels enables the digital fabrication of complex functional materials.

          Abstract

          Despite recent advances to control the spatial composition and dynamic functionalities of bacteria embedded in materials, bacterial localization into complex three-dimensional (3D) geometries remains a major challenge. We demonstrate a 3D printing approach to create bacteria-derived functional materials by combining the natural diverse metabolism of bacteria with the shape design freedom of additive manufacturing. To achieve this, we embedded bacteria in a biocompatible and functionalized 3D printing ink and printed two types of “living materials” capable of degrading pollutants and of producing medically relevant bacterial cellulose. With this versatile bacteria-printing platform, complex materials displaying spatially specific compositions, geometry, and properties not accessed by standard technologies can be assembled from bottom up for new biotechnological and biomedical applications.

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          Most cited references39

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          Microbial biofilms.

          Direct observations have clearly shown that biofilm bacteria predominate, numerically and metabolically, in virtually all nutrient-sufficient ecosystems. Therefore, these sessile organisms predominate in most of the environmental, industrial, and medical problems and processes of interest to microbiologists. If biofilm bacteria were simply planktonic cells that had adhered to a surface, this revelation would be unimportant, but they are demonstrably and profoundly different. We first noted that biofilm cells are at least 500 times more resistant to antibacterial agents. Now we have discovered that adhesion triggers the expression of a sigma factor that derepresses a large number of genes so that biofilm cells are clearly phenotypically distinct from their planktonic counterparts. Each biofilm bacterium lives in a customized microniche in a complex microbial community that has primitive homeostasis, a primitive circulatory system, and metabolic cooperativity, and each of these sessile cells reacts to its special environment so that it differs fundamentally from a planktonic cell of the same species.
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            Biofilms: the matrix revisited.

            Microbes often construct and live within surface-associated multicellular communities known as biofilms. The precise structure, chemistry and physiology of the biofilm all vary with the nature of its resident microbes and local environment. However, an important commonality among biofilms is that their structural integrity critically depends upon an extracellular matrix produced by their constituent cells. Extracellular matrices might be as diverse as biofilms, and they contribute significantly to the organization of the community. This review discusses recent advances in our understanding of the extracellular matrix and its role in biofilm biology.
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              Direct Ink Writing of 3D Functional Materials

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Sci Adv
                Sci Adv
                SciAdv
                advances
                Science Advances
                American Association for the Advancement of Science
                2375-2548
                December 2017
                01 December 2017
                : 3
                : 12
                : eaao6804
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Complex Materials, Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland.
                [2 ]School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, University College Dublin, Ireland.
                [3 ]Laboratory of Food Microbiology, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
                Author notes
                [*]

                These authors contributed equally to this work.

                []Corresponding authors. Email: andre.studart@ 123456mat.ethz.ch (A.R.S.); patrick.ruehs@ 123456mat.ethz.ch (P.A.R.)
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4787-5221
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1918-8253
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9271-3168
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1162-6549
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4205-8545
                Article
                aao6804
                10.1126/sciadv.aao6804
                5711516
                29214219
                8bcd07de-fc38-4e80-a7c2-b8a050b01037
                Copyright © 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                : 15 August 2017
                : 02 November 2017
                Funding
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Swiss National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: award345509
                Award ID: BSCGI0_157696
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Swiss National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: award345510
                Award ID: BSCGI0_157696
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Swiss National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: award345511
                Award ID: BSCGI0_157696
                Funded by: doi http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001711, Swiss National Science Foundation;
                Award ID: award345512
                Award ID: BSCGI0_157696
                Categories
                Research Article
                Research Articles
                SciAdv r-articles
                Materials Science
                Applied Sciences and Engineering
                Materials Science
                Custom metadata
                Rochelle Abragante

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