Biological fabrication of cellulose fibers with tailored properties

Abstract

Cotton is a promising basis for wearable smart textiles. Current approaches that rely on fiber coatings suffer from function loss during wear. We present an approach that allows biological incorporation of exogenous molecules into cotton fibers to tailor the material's functionality. In vitro model cultures of upland cotton () are incubated with 6-carboxyfluorescein-glucose and dysprosium-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7,10-tetraacetic acid-glucose, where the glucose moiety acts as a carrier capable of traveling from the vascular connection to the outermost cell layer of the ovule epidermis, becoming incorporated into the cellulose fibers. This yields fibers with unnatural properties such as fluorescence or magnetism. Combining biological systems with the appropriate molecular design offers numerous possibilities to grow functional composite materials and implements a material-farming concept.

Genome sequencing of the Australian wild diploid species Gossypium australe highlights disease resistance and delayed gland morphogenesis

“…The analysis showed identified selection signatures at 670 and 232 PSGs in the G. australe and G. arboretum genomes, respectively (Figure S6, Data S1). Subsequent KEGG pathway analysis indicated that statistically significant ( P < 0.05) enrichment among the G. australe PSGs for the ‘Other types of O‐glycan biosynthesis’ (ko00514) pathway (Figure S7), which was associated with cotton fibre strength in studies of in G. arboreum (Hernandez‐Gomez et al ., ; Natalio et al ., ). There was also significant enrichment among the G. australe PSGs for ‘Riboflavin metabolism’ (ko00740) (Asai et al ., ; Boubakri et al ., ; Deng et al ., ) and GPI (Shen et al ., ) (Figure S7), pathways which have been implicated in plant responses to biotic stresses.…”

A review on advances in methods for modification of paper supports for use in point-of-care testing

“…Furthermore, most chemical modification approaches are carried out on the commercial papers, resulting in the poor uniformity of structure due to artificial operation [29]. To improve the poor uniformity of structure, new paper modification approaches based on the papermaking process, such as addition of chemical reagents during the pulping process [142], can be used to produce special functional papers. Finally, hydrophobic patterning and barrier modification approaches will be further developed for integration with paperbased electronic chips [143].…”

Future Perspectives on Biological Fabrication and Material Farming

“…Our very initial studies were aimed at studying the biological selectivity uptake of different classes of organic dyes by the intermembranar glucose/sucrose transporter(s) (GLUT) using an in vitro culture of cotton . For this purpose, the cotton flowers were collected on the second day postanthesis and sterilized; the ovules were then carefully removed and floated in a Beasley and Ting medium (in a Petri dish) .…”

“…After exposing the fibers to UV light, the fibers became fluorescent. To ensure the coloration/fluorescence was biologically integrated and not merely a redeposition of the dye due to evaporation inside the Petri dish, we performed a small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS), wide‐Angle X‐ray scattering (WAXS), and single fiber mechanical tensile analysis . The SAXS and WAXS showed an increased structural amorphization and the fiber mechanical tensile analysis revealed a decrease in the fiber's mechanical properties.…”