Pu Jiahua, Liu Yi, Zhang Jicong, An Bolin, Li Yingfeng, Wang Xinyu, Din Kang, Qin Chong, Li Ke, Cui Mengkui, Liu Suying, Huang Yuanyuan, Wang Yanyi, Lv Yanan, Huang Jiaofang, Cui Zongqiang, Zhao Suwen, Zhong Chao
Materials and Physical Biology Division School of Physical Science and Technology ShanghaiTech University Shanghai 201210 China.
iHuman Institute ShanghaiTech University Shanghai 201210 China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2020 May 22;7(14):1903558. doi: 10.1002/advs.201903558. eCollection 2020 Jul.
Waterborne viruses frequently cause disease outbreaks and existing strategies to remove such viral pathogens often involve harsh or energy-consuming water treatment processes. Here, a simple, efficient, and environmentally friendly approach is reported to achieve highly selective disinfection of specific viruses with living engineered biofilm materials. As a proof-of-concept, biofilm matrix protein CsgA was initially genetically fused with the influenza-virus-binding peptide (C5). The resultant engineered living biofilms could correspondingly capture virus particles directly from aqueous solutions, disinfecting samples to a level below the limit-of-detection for a qPCR-based detection assay. By exploiting the surface-adherence properties of biofilms, it is further shown that polypropylene filler materials colonized by the CsgA-C5 biofilms can be utilized to disinfect river water samples with influenza titers as high as 1 × 10 PFU L. Additionally, a suicide gene circuit is designed and applied in the engineered strain that strictly limits the growth of bacterial, therefore providing a viable route to reduce potential risks confronted with the use of genetically modified organisms. The study thus illustrates that engineered biofilms can be harvested for the disinfection of pathogens from environmental water samples in a controlled manner and highlights the unique biology-only properties of living substances for material applications.
水传播病毒经常引发疾病爆发，而现有的去除此类病毒病原体的策略往往涉及苛刻或耗能的水处理过程。在此，报道了一种简单、高效且环保的方法，可利用经过工程改造的活生物膜材料对特定病毒进行高度选择性消毒。作为概念验证，生物膜基质蛋白CsgA最初与流感病毒结合肽（C5）进行基因融合。由此产生的工程化活生物膜能够相应地直接从水溶液中捕获病毒颗粒，将样品消毒至基于定量聚合酶链反应（qPCR）的检测方法的检测限以下水平。通过利用生物膜的表面附着特性，进一步表明，被CsgA-C5生物膜定殖的聚丙烯填充材料可用于对流感滴度高达1×10 PFU/L的河水样本进行消毒。此外，在工程菌株中设计并应用了自杀基因回路，严格限制细菌生长，从而提供了一条可行途径来降低使用转基因生物所面临的潜在风险。该研究因此表明，工程化生物膜可被用于以可控方式对环境水样中的病原体进行消毒，并突出了活体物质在材料应用中仅有的独特生物学特性。
