How can bacterial cellulose contribute to a sustainable growth?

The demand for biopolymers is constantly increasing and is estimated to grow further especially to satisfy the urgent needs of companies to move towards more sustainable approaches and to find alternative solutions to decrease their environmental impact. Among the emerging biomaterials, bacterial cellulose is arousing great interest since it possesses peculiar characteristics which distinguish it from the vegetal counterpart (1). Despite the similarities in the chemical structures, indeed, bacterial cellulose showed higher purity, water holding capacity, and tensile strength resistance if compared to the plant-based one. While the production of this latter could be associated to deforestation and ecosystem degradation, bacterial cellulose can be obtained following green protocols which require unexpensive media, also including waste recycling. Although the scale-up of the production of this biomaterial remains a big challenge, its versatility paves the way towards many different applications, including papermaking, food, pharmaceutical, and biomedical sectors. Several bacterial strains have already been demonstrated to be cellulose producers. In this work, unique Antarctic bacteria isolated from a consortium associated to a ciliate organism were tested for cellulose production. Antarctic microorganisms developed extraordinary strategies of survival, involving the ability to resist against cold temperatures and UV radiations, to scavenge iron under limited concentrations, and to detoxify hazard compounds, such as heavy metals and pollutants (2). They also showed they could produce different biopolymers in response to the environmental stress factors. Thus, the aim of this project is to exploit the fascinating metabolism of Antarctic bacteria to produce cellulose with different shapes and properties, to optimize its biosynthesis, and to characterize it through chemical analyses.