The "cyborg cells", living cells with built-in nanoscaffolds, which could integrate the biological function of the cells with the functionality of nanomaterials, have been rarely explored. Here we report a method to construct "cyborg erythrocytes" through the in situ reaction of exogenous calcium and carbonate ions to generate calcium carbonate nanodots inside erythrocytes. The intracellular calcium carbonate nanodots combined with proteins are hidden under the membrane of erythrocytes, which can restrict migration and unexpected accumulation of nanodots in the body, improving the biosecurity of the nanodots. Most importantly, the calcium carbonate nanodots not only do not bring adverse effects on the nature of erythrocytes, but also endow erythrocytes with new properties. The in vitro and in vivo results show that the "cyborg erythrocytes" can remove 80% of lead ions in a blood poisoning model and reduce the lead level in the kidney and liver of mice through a precipitation transformation mechanism.
Photobiological chemicals production is of great importance for solar energy storage and clean fuel generation. One rising strategy for the solar fuels production is to enhance the non-photosynthetic cells’ original...
The
broad applications of implantable glucose biofuel cells (GBFCs)
have become very attractive in biomedical sciences. The key challenge
of GBFCs is eliminating the inevitable product H2O2 generated from the oxidation of glucose when glucose oxidase
(GOx) is used as a catalyst while improving the performance of GBFCs.
In this work, the cascade electrocatalyst, RBCs@NPDA was obtained
through the in situ polymerization of dopamine to form nanopolydopamine
(NPDA) on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). The RBCs@NPDA can
catalyze both fuels of H2O2 and O2, so as to generate a high cathodic current (0.414 mA cm–2). Furthermore, when RBCs@NPDA was used as a cathodic catalyst in
the membraneless GBFC, it exhibited the cascade catalytic activity
in the reduction of O2–H2O2 and minimized the damage to RBCs caused by the high concentration
of H2O2. The mechanism research indicates that
RBCs@NPDA integrates the property of NPDA and RBCs. Specifically,
NPDA plays a catalase-like role in catalyzing the decomposition of
H2O2, while RBCs play a laccase-like role in
electrocatalyzing the O2 reduction reaction. This work
offers the cascade catalyst for improving the performance of implantable
GBFC and presents a strategy for constructing catalysts using living
cells and nanomaterials to replace deformable and unstable enzymes
in other biofuel cells.
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