Exploiting Micrometer-Scale Replication of Fungal Biotemplates for Multifunctional Uses in Electrochemistry and SERS Substrates.

In this paper, filamentous fungi have been used as biotemplates to integrate gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) into the cell wall. A new chemical mechanism has been proposed to elucidate the assimilation of Au-NPs by fungi, considering the ionic current that arises in the function of fungal metabolism. After biological components were eliminated, mycelium-like gold microtubes have been obtained using different fungal species as precursors.

Antimicrobial and degradable triazolinedione (TAD) crosslinked polypeptide hydrogels.

Hydrogels are perfectly suited to support cell and tissue growth in advanced tissue engineering applications as well as classical wound treatment scenarios. Ideal hydrogel materials for these applications should be easy to produce, biocompatible, resorbable and antimicrobial. Here we report the fabrication of degradable covalent antimicrobial lysine and tryptophan containing copolypeptide hydrogels, whereby the hydrogel properties can be independently modulated by the copolypeptide monomer ratio and chiral composition.

Photoluminescent organisms: how to make fungi glow through biointegration with lanthanide metal-organic frameworks.

We show that filamentous fungi can emit green or red light after the accumulation of particulate lanthanide metal-organic frameworks over the cell wall. These new biohybrids present photoluminescence properties that are unaffected by the components of the cell wall. In addition, the fungal cells internalise lanthanide metal-organic framework particles, storing them into organelles, thereby making these materials promising for applications in living imaging studies.

Bio-inspired gold microtubes based on the morphology of filamentous fungi.

This communication describes a general method for templating fungal filaments with gold nanoparticles that results in a gold replica of filaments after calcination of the biological template.