Constructing living buildings: a review of relevant technologies for a novel application of biohybrid robotics

Biohybrid robotics takes an engineering approach to the expansion and exploitation of biological behaviours for application to automated tasks. Here, we identify the construction of living buildings and infrastructure as a high-potential application domain for biohybrid robotics, and review technological advances relevant to its future development. Construction, civil infrastructure maintenance and building occupancy in the last decades have comprised a major portion of economic production, energy consumption and carbon emissions. Integrating biological organisms into automated construction tasks and permanent building components therefore has high potential for impact. Live materials can provide several advantages over standard synthetic construction materials, including self-repair of damage, increase rather than degradation of structural performance over time, resilience to corrosive environments, support of biodiversity, and mitigation of urban heat islands. Here, we review relevant technologies, which are currently disparate. They span robotics, self-organizing systems, artificial life, construction automation, structural engineering, architecture, bioengineering, biomaterials, and molecular and cellular biology. In these disciplines, developments relevant to biohybrid construction and living buildings are in the early stages, and typically are not exchanged between disciplines. We, therefore, consider this review useful to the future development of biohybrid engineering for this highly interdisciplinary application.publishe

Molecular and functional characterization of nucleases involved in plant programmed cell death

Wydział BiologiiPrzeprowadzone badania wykazały w jaki sposób proces ewolucji prowadził do wytworzenia różnorodności wymagań katalitycznych nukleaz S1/P1. A różnorodność tego typu nie jest cechą specyficzną jedynie dla roślin. Opisano również zmiany lokalizacji komórkowej nukleaz typu S1/P1 w trakcie PCD oraz w wyniku oddziaływania kwasu salicylowego, potwierdzając, że ma ona związek z ich wymaganiami katalitycznymi. Przedstawiono profile ekspresji promotorów nukleaz z rodzin S1/P1 oraz SNc na w trakcie rozwoju roślin. Potwierdziło to udział niezbadanych dotychczas nukleaz z rodzin S1/P1 oraz SNc w procesach zachodzących na terenie tkanek podlegających PCD. Wykazało to, że mechanizmy degradacji DNA angażują współdziałające ze sobą nukleazy. Przenalizowano również fenotypy mutantów delecyjnych tych nukleaz, co potwierdziło, że kluczowe dla przebiegu procesu PCD u roślin są nukleazy wymagające neutralnego pH oraz obecności jonów Ca2+.Programmed cell death (PCD) plays fundamental roles in plants’ responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as during plant development. The degradation of genomic DNA and RNA is one of the key factors of programmed cell death. It was hypothesized that cooperation of nucleases from two protein families, S1/P1 and SNc, is crucial for hydrolysis of the plant's nucleic acid. Their catalytic requirements diversity are a consequence of changing the cell environment during PCD, and they act during different steps of this process. First act nucleases with catalytic requirements of neutral pH and presence of Ca2+, then nucleases with catalytic requirements of low pH and presence of Zn2+ are involved in finishing of degradation. My research explained the evolution mechanism of diversification of S1/P1 nucleases catalytic requirements and exhibit this variety is not exclusively plant feature. I revealed specific amino acids responsible for ions and pH preferences. I studied cell localization change of S1/P1 during PCD and in presence of salicylic acid. I showed that cell localizations of nucleases correlated with their catalytic requirements. Results suggest high diversity of S1/P1 and SNc nucleases expression, both in different time and tissues. Promoters of S1/P1-like families show distinctive but in some cases overlapping expression patterns. I indicated possible mechanisms of nucleases cooperation in DNA degradation. I analyzed phenotypes of S1/P1 and SNc nucleases knock-out plants. Results suggest that nucleases with catalytic requirements of neutral pH and presence of Ca2+ play crucial roles in plant development.Badania zostały sfinansowane przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki grantami „Charakterystyka mechanizmu degradacji DNA w różnych formach programowanej śmierci komórki u roślin” przyznanego na podstawie decyzji 2014/15/B/NZ3/00863 oraz „Analiza funkcji nukleaz sekrecyjnych Acanthamoeba castellanii” przyznanego na podstawie decyzji 2019/33/N/NZ6/00655. A także przez Dziekana Wydziału Biologii UAM grantem „Analiza specyfiki aktywności nukleolitycznych u Acanthamoeba castellanii” o numerze GDWB-10/2016. Działalność doktorancką autora wsparło stypendium motywacyjne programu Paszport do przyszłości - Interdyscyplinarne studia doktoranckie na Wydziale Biologii UAM POWR.03.02.00- 00-I006/17 oraz specjalne stypendium naukowe z dotacji podmiotowej w ramach Krajowego Naukowego Ośrodka Wiodącego „Poznańskie Konsorcjum RNA” dla uczestników stacjonarnych studiów doktoranckich na Wydziale Biologii

Plant Science View on Biohybrid Development

Biohybrid consists of a living organism or cell and at least one engineered component. Designing robot–plant biohybrids is a great challenge: it requires interdisciplinary reconsideration of capabilities intimate specific to the biology of plants. Envisioned advances should improve agricultural/horticultural/social practice and could open new directions in utilization of plants by humans. Proper biohybrid cooperation depends upon effective communication. During evolution, plants developed many ways to communicate with each other, with animals, and with microorganisms. The most notable examples are: the use of phytohormones, rapid long-distance signaling, gravity, and light perception. These processes can now be intentionally re-shaped to establish plant–robot communication. In this article, we focus on plants physiological and molecular processes that could be used in bio-hybrids. We show phototropism and biomechanics as promising ways of effective communication, resulting in an alteration in plant architecture, and discuss the specifics of plants anatomy, physiology and development with regards to the bio-hybrids. Moreover, we discuss ways how robots could influence plants growth and development and present aims, ideas, and realized projects of plant–robot biohybrids