Bioengineering to increase yield and efficiency of bacterial cellulose production and manipulation of its mechanochemical properties.

As a bionanomaterial, bacterial cellulose (BC) has multiple applications in the medical field (e.g. medical wound dressings, antimicrobial drug delivery systems, scaffolding for tissue engineering, and artificial skin/blood vessels), as well as many non-medical applications (e.g. photocatalysts, biosensors, paper products, electronics, acoustic speakers, and textiles). Therefore the inexpensive production of BC and modified BC is potentially transformative. For example, the creation of more amorphous and less recalcitrant BC decreases or eliminates the need for cellulose pretreatment when used as a biofuel, decreasing the overall cost and carbon footprint of cellulose-based biofuels. Moreover, amorphous BC has application as a self-removing bandage. Most studies addressing BC have focused on the use of inexpensive feedstocks to decrease production cost. A combination of genetic and metabolic engineering coupled with transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) is being used to more adequately address limitations in yield, production efficiency, and mechanical properties of BC producing acetic acid bacteria. May lab is attempting to manipulate key regulatory/biosynthetic genes involved in the biosynthesis of BC and to increase production yield and efficiency. Genes encoding enzymes involved in the production of metabolic side products can also be targeted for deletion using a markerless deletion system, increase carbon flux to BC. Genetically engineered strains will be screened for improved phenotypes, while RNA-seq is used iteratively to define additional gene targets to enhance strain phenotypes. This same approach will be used simultaneously to alter the mechanochemical properties of BC by manipulating crystallinity to make BC less recalcitrant and introduce pathways to incorporate alternate UDP-sugars into BC (e.g. UDP-mannose, UDP-glucuronate, UDP-N-acetylglucosamine).