GM microbes for strengthening buildings
Bacteria from the "smart soil" will repair the foundations
Subsidence of the ground under buildings often leads to an increase in the load on the foundation and its destruction. A group of British scientists decided to fight this with the help of "smart soil", which consists of genetically modified bacteria that produce "bio-cement" in response to changes in pressure in the soil.
The bacterium, which the developers call BacillaFilla, is a common hay stick (Bacillus subtilis) with an altered genome. At the beginning of the research, they placed hay sticks in a surrogate soil – a "hydrogel" in the form of a cylinder. The hydrogel populated with bacteria was subjected to high pressure, ten times higher than the pressure at sea level. This made it possible to identify 122 bacterial genes that increase their activity with increasing pressure. Then the bacterium was modified so that the regulatory DNA of one of these genes became linked to the gene responsible for the synthesis of fluorescent protein. Now, the more pressure the bacteria are subjected to, the more the fluorescent protein glows in them.
In the future, the researchers plan to replace the fluorescent protein gene with a "bio-cement" gene, which will strengthen the foundation in response to increased pressure. The bio-cement will consist of calcium carbonate, filamentous bacterial cells and a polymer of levansaccharose, which is produced by a genetically modified hay stick. There was also a computer program created that predicts how bacteria will react to various forces, for example, water pressure transmitted through the soil under the foundation of a building.
The project was presented at the conference of the Association of Computer Design in the field of architecture, held in Ann Arbor.
The article ‘Thinking soil’ made of bacteria could keep buildings from collapsing is published in the journal Science.
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31.10.2016