Self-dyeing textiles grown from cellulose-producing bacteria with engineered tyrosinase expression

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 Komagataeibacter rhaeticus 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.