Advanced Multifunctional Biofilms
A special issue of Journal of Functional Biomaterials (ISSN 2079-4983).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2021) | Viewed by 538
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Multifunctional bacterial biofilms are communities of single or multiple microorganisms providing different combinatorial capabilities depending on the microbial species. They can be attached to nearly all kinds of surfaces, such as polymers, metals, etc., to be applied in bioreactors, microfluidic systems or on microchips.
Such kinds of engineered synthetic biofilms obviously represent a novel bioorganic platform for nano- and biomaterial processing, and innovative sensors and diagnostics, too. Presently, biofilm engineering is attracting an increasing amount of attention in materials fabrication and additive manufacturing technologies. It is possible to improve or broaden existing functionalities via combination of different biofilm-forming bacteria strains embedded in the same space or as corresponding biofilm compartments. Such engineered or synthetic biofilms can be created by genetic fusions and transfections. The design of synthetic genetic patterns must be enabled to modulate the population balance in multispecies biofilms to control both the biofilm formation and the bacterial quorum sensing. The challenge of the novel biofilm multifunctionality requires an optimal peptide fusion, the tolerance of the fusion protein to mutations, the toxicity of the new peptide tags to the bacterial cells, and an appropriate assay for characterization.
Mixed populations inside the biofilm sphere in combination with the appropriate genetic engineering pave the way to design artificial multifunctional biofilms for exploitation by the biotechnology, medicine, sensor technology, and fermentation industry. Biofilm control strategies with the ability to engineer the biofilm multifunctionality and/or the functional properties of the ECM are the backbone of a promising platform targeted at novel biosensors for diagnostics and autonomous and self-replicating distributed molecular factories for the production of materials.
Research and review articles of the science and the industrial community focusing on the design and engineering of multifunctional biofilms are highly welcome.
Prof. Dr. Lothar Heinrich
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- biofilm
- multifunctionality
- genetic engineering
- biosensors
- biotechnology
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