Biomaterials: Chlorella spp. cells growth inside silica matrices

M. PERULLINI; SARA ALDABE BILMES; MATIAS JOBBAGY; MERCEDES RIVERO; ALEJANDRO MENTABERRY

Buenos Aires

Congreso; BairesBiotech 2005; 2005

REDBIO Argentina - Grupo Biotecnología

In the recent years many attention has been focused in the sol-gel encapsulation of whole cells , with a wide range of applications such as bioremediation devices, biosensors and bioreactors .Until present it has been shown that individual cells entrapped in silica matrices keep their viability and remain metabolically active, but confinement unables them to complete cellular division. This limitation has been recently overcomed in our group by a novel sol-gel synthesis strategy that allows cell division inside silica monoliths. In the present work we show the application of this procedure to the encapsulation of Chlorella spp. cells and their culture inside silica matrices.