Bacterial Biopolymer: Its Role in Pathogenesis to Effective Biomaterials

• Main Authors: Sreejita Ghosh, Dibyajit Lahiri, Moupriya Nag, Ankita Dey, Tanmay Sarkar, Sushil Kumar Pathak, Hisham Atan Edinur, Siddhartha Pati, Rina Rani Ray
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: cell factories; bacterial biopolymers; pathogenesis; biomaterials; synthetic biology
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/8/1242

Bacteria are considered as the major cell factories, which can effectively convert nitrogen and carbon sources to a wide variety of extracellular and intracellular biopolymers like polyamides, polysaccharides, polyphosphates, polyesters, proteinaceous compounds, and extracellular DNA. Bacterial biopolymers find applications in pathogenicity, and their diverse materialistic and chemical properties make them suitable to be used in medicinal industries. When these biopolymer compounds are obtained from pathogenic bacteria, they serve as important virulence factors, but when they are produced by non-pathogenic bacteria, they act as food components or biomaterials. There have been interdisciplinary studies going on to focus on the molecular mechanism of synthesis of bacterial biopolymers and identification of new targets for antimicrobial drugs, utilizing synthetic biology for designing and production of innovative biomaterials. This review sheds light on the mechanism of synthesis of bacterial biopolymers and its necessary modifications to be used as cell based micro-factories for the production of tailor-made biomaterials for high-end applications and their role in pathogenesis.