Chemical fuel-driven dissipative living materials

Dissipative behaviors in biology are fuel-driven processes controlled by living cells and shape the structural and functional complexities in biological materials. It has inspired the development of various forms of synthetic dissipative materials controlled by time-dependent consumption of chemical or physical fuels, such as reactive chemical species, light, and electricity. To this date, synthetic living material featuring dissipative behaviors directly controlled by the fuel consumption of their constituent cells is unprecedented. In this paper, we report a chemical fuel-driven dissipative behavior of living materials comprising S. epidermidis and telechelic block copolymers. The macroscopic phase transition is controlled by D-glucose which serves a dual role of a competitive disassembling agent and a biological fuel source for living cells. Our work is a significant step towards constructing a synthetic dissipative living system and provides a new tool and knowledge to design emergent living materials.