Regulating Bacteria Growth within 3D Hydrogels–Material-based Strategies For Biocontainment

Many applications of synthetic biology involve the delivery of engineered microbes to natural environments and require biocontainment strategies to control the proliferation of the engineered systems and avoid alteration or colonization of the natural milieu. Microbial biocontainment systems primarily target the inhibition of cellular proliferation by further engineering of the organism itself. An alternative strategy with additional benefits is the use of physical confinement to regulate microbial growth. 3D hydrogels can be engineered to encapsulate functional microbes, to shield them from external predators, and tightly regulate their proliferation and function. We will present dynamic hydrogel compositions that can contain and control the proliferation and metabolic activity of encapsulated cell biofactories and can be processed into useful living devices with living therapeutic functions. We also present microarrays with engineered material microenvironments to study multifactorial microbial responses in parallelized experimental formats.