Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Tom Ellis

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering

Professor of Synthetic Genome Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7615t.ellis Website CV

 
 
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Location

 

704Bessemer BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Walker:2023:10.1101/2023.02.28.530172,
author = {Walker, KT and Keane, J and Goosens, VJ and Song, W and Lee, K-Y and Ellis, T},
doi = {10.1101/2023.02.28.530172},
title = {Self-dyeing textiles grown from cellulose-producing bacteria with engineered tyrosinase expression},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.28.530172},
year = {2023}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Environmental concerns are driving interests in post-petroleum synthetic textiles produced from microbial and fungal sources. Bacterial cellulose is a promising sustainable leather alternative, on account of its material properties, low infrastructure needs and biodegradability. However, for alternative textiles like bacterial cellulose to be fully sustainable, alternative ways to dye textiles need to be developed alongside alternative production methods. To address this, we here use genetic engineering of<jats:italic>Komagataeibacter rhaeticus</jats:italic>to create a bacterial strain that grows self-dyeing bacterial cellulose. Dark black pigmentation robust to material use is achieved through melanin biosynthesis in the bacteria from recombinant tyrosinase expression. Melanated bacterial cellulose production can be scaled up for the construction of prototype fashion products, and we illustrate the potential of combining engineered self-dyeing with tools from synthetic biology, via the optogenetic patterning of gene expression in cellulose-producing bacteria. With this work, we demonstrate that combining genetic engineering with current and future methods of textile biofabrication has the potential to create a new class of textiles.</jats:p>
AU  - Walker,KT
AU  - Keane,J
AU  - Goosens,VJ
AU  - Song,W
AU  - Lee,K-Y
AU  - Ellis,T
DO  - 10.1101/2023.02.28.530172
PY  - 2023///
TI  - Self-dyeing textiles grown from cellulose-producing bacteria with engineered tyrosinase expression
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.28.530172
ER  -
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