‘Living’ Nanomaterials Made from E.coli

You don’t often hear positive news about the bacteria E.coli, but researchers at MIT may have advanced the development of self-assembling materials by using the bacteria to create a material with properties of both living and non-living substances.

By adding gold nanoparticles or quantum dots to the bacteria, the team says it is possible to create “living materials” that could self heal or develop complex networks.

The researchers altered E.coli’s ability to produce biofilm curli fibers containing protein subunits called CsgA. The genetically engineered strain can only produce the protein under certain conditions. When gold nanoparticles are added to the fibers, they grab the particles and create a network of nanowires. The team also created curli fibers that could weave quantum dots in the biofilm. The researchers also found that the cells can coordinate with each other to control the composition of the biofilm.

“Our idea is to put the living and the nonliving worlds together to make hybrid materials that have living cells in them and are functional,” said Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering at MIT. “It’s an interesting way of thinking about materials synthesis, which is very different from what people do now, which is usually a top-down approach.”

The research is described in a paper that appeared in Nature Materials.

Source: MIT