On June 1st, 2022, Professor Guang Yang’s 3Bio Group at Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology published a review article entitled “Bacterial cellulose: Molecular regulation of biosynthesis, supramolecular assembly, and tailored structural and functional properties” in the internationally renowned journal《Progress In Materials Science》 (Impact Factor: 39.58).

In recent years, Professor Yang's 3Bio Group has carried out a series of baisic and applied research on the synthesis, regulation, and functionalization of bacterial cellulose (BC). Among the different types of nanocellulose, bacterial cellulose (BC) or bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) is now receiving tremendous attention due to its purity and superior features. Either alone or in the form of composites, BC finds diverse applications in different fields.

This review systematically summarizes the biosynthesis of bacterial cellulose and the extracellular transport mechanism of microorganisms, which is helpful for researchers to further understand the molecular and regulatory mechanism of cellulose biosynthesis in bacterial cells and other cell-free systems, and further promote the understanding of the structure and regulation of bacterial cellulose. This review, thereby, can promote the improvement of the structure and functional characteristics of bacterial cellulose and open the door for new applications of bacterial cellulose in different fields. The development of BC-based composite functional materials, BC-based block copolymers, and the methods of producing hybrid cellulose by using genetic engineering vectors and tissue engineered plants introduced in this review will provide a platform for molecular biologists and material scientists to design composite materials with novel functions and applications.

The Co-first authors of this paper are Sehrish Manan and Muhammad Wajid Ullah, and the corresponding authors are Professor Guang Yang and Muhammad Wajid Ullah of Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The molecular regulation of intracellular synthesis, extracellular

transport, and in vitro assembly of cellulose fibrils into highly-ordered supramolecular structures

Weblink:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079642522000536?via%3Dihub