Fig. 2: Cell viability within hydrogels.
From: Phenotypically complex living materials containing engineered cyanobacteria
a Top: growth of WT S. elongatus within a 3D-printed grid pattern over 7 days. Bottom: representative images of 5-day-old hydrogels containing WT cells printed in disk, honeycomb, and grid_A geometries. The dimension details of these different patterns are described in Supplementary Data 1. Scale bars in lower left correspond to 10 mm. Experiments were conducted thrice with independent samples (n = 3). b Representative FESEM images of unloaded hydrogels (i & ii), and hydrogels containing WT S. elongatus cells (iii & iv). S. elongatus cells are highlighted in false color green. Experiments were conducted with independent samples (n = 3). c Representative confocal microscopy images of chlorophyll autofluorescence and SYTOX blue staining of a hydrogel containing WT S. elongatus cells after 0, 5, and 7 days of growth post-printing. Experiments were conducted with independent samples (n = 3 for Days 0 and 7). Scale bar corresponds to 50 µm. d Box plots with center lines showing the medians, boxes indicating the lower (25%) and upper (75%) quartiles, and whiskers indicating 1.5× interquartile range of net photosynthesis at an incident downwelling irradiance of 80 μmol photon m−2 s−1 for an unloaded hydrogel and an antibiotic-resistant S. elongatus strain [WT(SpRSmRGmR)] encapsulated in the hydrogel. Experiments were performed as measurements of independent regions of a hydrogel (n = 15). Error bars are S.E.M.
