Virus Disinfection from Environmental Water Sources Using Living Engineered Biofilm Materials

Abstract

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, Escherichia coli 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 7 PFU L −1 . 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.

Regulating bacterial behavior within hydrogels of tunable viscoelasticity

“…become active components of material's design and perform advanced functions. [1][2][3] Examples of ELMs include biofilters to sequester metals [4] or viruses, [5] bacterial hydrogels for biosensing, [6] shape-morphing composites, [7] self-healing adhesives, [8] photosynthetic biogarments [9] or self-regulated drug delivery devices. [10] A common feature in these constructs is the encapsulation of the organisms within matrices including natural polymers like agarose, [11,12] alginate, [13] and dextran, [14] synthetic polymers like polyvinyl alcohol [15] and Pluronic, [16,17] or inorganic matrices like porous silica.…”

Hybrid Living Capsules Autonomously Produced by Engineered Bacteria

“…To demonstrate the potential functionality of the capsules, we produced hybrid capsules containing engineered curli nanofibers displaying various functional protein domains. Curli are insoluble and robust functional protein fibers anchored to the surface of E. coli cells, whose versatility as a platform for ELMs has been explored in many applications, including adhesion to abiotic surfaces, [ 16 ] in vivo display of therapeutic domains, [ 45 ] and sequestration of pathogens from drinking water, [ 46 ] among others. [ 47 ] We hypothesized that we could add a range of functionality to the capsules by expressing curli‐tethered proteins, which would remain fixed within the BC matrix while interacting with the external solution.…”

Hybrid Living Capsules Autonomously Produced by Engineered Bacteria

“…To demonstrate the potential functionality of the capsules, we produced hybrid capsules containing engineered curli nanofibers displaying various functional protein domains. Curli are insoluble and robust functional protein fibers anchored to the surface of E. coli cells, whose versatility as a platform for ELMs has been explored in many applications, including adhesion to abiotic surfaces ( 16 ), in vivo display of therapeutic domains ( 41 ), and sequestration of pathogens from drinking water ( 42 ), among others ( 43 ). We hypothesized that we could add a range of functionality to the capsules by expressing curli-tethered proteins, which would remain fixed within the BC matrix while interacting with the external solution.…”