Hybrid Living Capsules Autonomously Produced by Engineered Bacteria.

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has excellent material properties and can be produced sustainably through simple bacterial culture, but BC-producing bacteria lack the extensive genetic toolkits of model organisms such as (). Here, a simple approach is reported for producing highly programmable BC materials through incorporation of engineered . The acetic acid bacterium is cocultured with engineered in droplets of glucose-rich media to produce robust cellulose capsules, which are then colonized by the upon transfer to selective lysogeny broth media.