Nature Sub-Journal: Cells construct biomedical active composite polymers

Duke University biomedical engineers have demonstrated that a class of interwoven composite materials called semi-interpenetrating polymer networks (SIPNs) can be produced from living cells

The traditional method of making sipn usually involves producing components called monomers and mixing them together under appropriate chemical conditions to control their assembly into a large network in one process, said You Lingchong, professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University: "When it works, it is a wonderful platform that can integrate different functions into self-assembled layers for biomedical or environmental applications

In this new paper, a former postdoctoral fellow in your laboratory, who is now an associate professor at the Shenzhen Institute of Synthetic Biology, uses a platform called "swarmbots" that the laboratory has developed over the years to achieve this goal

Swarmbots are living cells that are programmed to produce biomolecules in the cell wall.

Each monomer can contain multiple SpyTags or SpyCatchers, and can also be fused to proteins that produce reads or have specific functions

The researchers first programmed the cells to fill this auxiliary function with a fluorescent protein to prove that the system can lock them in place

"You can replace the fluorescent label with any function you want," you said, we decided to contact antibiotics because it is another focus of our laboratory

To prove a useful method of constructing sIPNs from their new cells, the researchers filled the auxiliary site with β-lactamase, an enzyme that can degrade β-lactam antibiotics

"No one used living cells as factories to produce monomers of sIPNs in real time before," you said

Journal Reference :

1. Zhuojun Dai, Xiaoyu Yang, Feilun Wu, Lihua Wang, Kun Xiang, Pengcheng Li, Qingqing Lv, Jinhui Tang, Anders Dohlman, Lei Dai, Xiling Shen, Lingchong You.