Towards efficient production and application of bacterial cellulose: the progress from conventional to advanced production

Bacterial cellulose is a water-insoluble polysaccharide, and is gaining increasing attention for its high purity and ultra-fine network structure. It has been widely used in food, biomedicine, and many other industries. However, low microbial productivity and high fermentation bioreactor costs primarily limit its production and application. It could be the limited efficient breeding of high-yielding strains and the understanding of its biosynthesis mechanism. Metabolic engineering and genetic engineering reveal the molecular structure of bacterial cellulose-specific, and its molecular theories for biosynthesis in vivo , transport and supramolecular assembly in vitro . The high-yield strains, and the bacterial cellulose of structural and functional performance, can be regulated by effective breeding, genetics, metabolism modifications. Owing to recent progress in genomics and metabolism, different bacterial strains are designed by overexpression or knockdown, for both increasing its productivity and improving key properties such as mechanical strength and thermal stability. This review comprehensively evaluates the breeding methods of bacterial cells, and how biosynthesis, regulation, and application are governed at the molecular scale. It further discusses the bottlenecks of its production, both by analyzing the characteristics of high-yield strains and combining traditional methods with genetic engineering to regulate its biosynthesis and secretion. Overall, this review provides an updated and clear understanding of the bacterial cellulose synthesis network for production and modification, and it provides valuable ideas for continuous bacterial cellulose-related research and ultimately for its effective production.