Endowing textiles with self-repairing ability through the fabrication of composites with a bacterial biofilm.

To address the increasing environmental footprint of the fast-growing textile industry, self-repairing textile composites have been developed to allow torn or damaged textiles to restore their morphological, mechanical, and functional features. A sustainable way to create these textile composites is to introduce a coating material that is biologically derived, biodegradable, and can be produced through scalable processes. Here, we fabricated self-repairing textile composites by integrating the biofilms of Escherichia coli (E.

Bacterial collagen-templated synthesis and assembly of inorganic particles.

Collagen has been used as a common template for mineralization and assembly of inorganic particles, because of the special arrangement of its fibrils and the presence of charged residues. Streptococcal bacterial collagen, which is inherently secreted on the surface of, has been progressively used as an alternative for type I animal collagen. Bacterial collagen is rich in charged amino acids, which can act as a substrate for the nucleation and growth of inorganic particles.

Fabrication of Curli Fiber-PEDOT:PSS Biomaterials with Tunable Self-Healing, Mechanical, and Electrical Properties.

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) is a highly conductive, easily processable, self-healing polymer. It has been shown to be useful in bioelectronic applications, for instance, as a biointerfacing layer for studying brain activity, in biosensitive transistors, and in wearable biosensors. A green and biofriendly method for improving the mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and stability of PEDOT:PSS involves mixing the polymer with a biopolymer.

Extracellular Secretion and Simple Purification of Bacterial Collagen from .

Because of structural similarities with type-I animal collagen, recombinant bacterial collagen-like proteins have been progressively used as a source of collagen for biomaterial applications. However, the intracellular expression combined with current costly and time-consuming chromatography methods for purification makes the large-scale production of recombinant bacterial collagen challenging. Here, we report the use of an adapted secretion pathway, used natively byto secrete curli fibers, for extracellular secretion of the bacterial collagen.

Curli-Mediated Self-Assembly of a Fibrous Protein Scaffold for Hydroxyapatite Mineralization.

Nanostructures formed by self-assembled peptides have been increasingly exploited as functional materials for a wide variety of applications, from biotechnology to energy. However, it is sometimes challenging to assemble free short peptides into functional supramolecular structures, since not all peptides have the ability to self-assemble. Here, we report a self-assembly mechanism for short functional peptides that we derived from a class of fiber-forming amyloid proteins called curli.

Fabrication of fluorescent pH-responsive protein-textile composites.

Wearable pH sensors are useful tools in the healthcare and fitness industries, allowing consumers to access information related to their health in a convenient manner via the monitoring of body fluids. In this work, we tailored novel protein-textile composites to fluorescently respond to changing pH. To do so, we used amyloid curli fibers, a key component in the extracellular matrix of Escherichia coli, as genetic scaffold to fuse a pH-responsive fluorescent protein, pHuji.

Bacteria-Responsive Single and Core-Shell Nanofibrous Membranes Based on Polycaprolactone/Poly(ethylene succinate) for On-Demand Release of Biocides.

Traditional antibacterial dressings continuously elute biocides, even if there are no bacteria. This unneeded release can cause cytotoxicity, increase costs, and delay healing. We designed a bacteria-responsive nanofibrous wound dressing, which can be degraded in the presence of bacteria to release antimicrobial agents.

Salinomycin-loaded Nanofibers for Glioblastoma Therapy.

Salinomycin is an antibiotic that has recently been introduced as a novel and effective anti-cancer drug. In this study, PLGA nanofibers (NFs) containing salinomycin (Sali) were fabricated by electrospinning for the first time. The biodegradable PLGA NFs had stability for approximately 30 days and exhibited a sustained release of the drug for at least a 2-week period.