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Hydrogel-based biocontainment of bacteria for continuous sensing and computation
Name
ncb_2021.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
8.45 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
190e06c5583a0e52e90383b4c239a109
Author(s)
Tang, Tzu-Chieh
Tham, Eléonore
Liu, Xinyue
Yehl, Kevin
Rovner, Alexis J
Yuk, Hyunwoo
de la Fuente-Nunez, Cesar
Isaacs, Farren J
Zhao, Xuanhe
Lu, Timothy K
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Nature Chemical Biology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Tang, Tzu-Chieh, Tham, Eléonore, Liu, Xinyue, Yehl, Kevin, Rovner, Alexis J et al. 2021. "Hydrogel-based biocontainment of bacteria for continuous sensing and computation." Nature Chemical Biology, 17 (6).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Genetically modified microorganisms (GMMs) can enable a wide range of important applications including environmental sensing and responsive engineered living materials. However, containment of GMMs to prevent environmental escape and satisfy regulatory requirements is a bottleneck for real-world use. While current biochemical strategies restrict unwanted growth of GMMs in the environment, there is a need for deployable physical containment technologies to achieve redundant, multi-layered and robust containment. We developed a hydrogel-based encapsulation system that incorporates a biocompatible multilayer tough shell and an alginate-based core. This deployable physical containment strategy (DEPCOS) allows no detectable GMM escape, bacteria to be protected against environmental insults including antibiotics and low pH, controllable lifespan and easy retrieval of genomically recoded bacteria. To highlight the versatility of DEPCOS, we demonstrated that robustly encapsulated cells can execute useful functions, including performing cell-cell communication with other encapsulated bacteria and sensing heavy metals in water samples from the Charles River.
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
10.1038/S41589-021-00779-6
