Engineered live bacteria as disease detection and diagnosis tools

Journal of Biological Engineering

Review

Imen Tanniche¹  Bahareh Behkam² 

[1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA;Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA;School of Biomedical Engineered and Sciences, Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA;Center for Engineered Health, Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science, Virginia Tech, 24061, Blacksburg, VA, USA;

关键词: Whole-cell biosensors;    Living machines;    Biomedical diagnostics;    Imaging vectors;    Synthetic biology;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13036-023-00379-z

 received in 2023-05-11, accepted in 2023-09-18,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Sensitive and minimally invasive medical diagnostics are essential to the early detection of diseases, monitoring their progression and response to treatment. Engineered bacteria as live sensors are being developed as a new class of biosensors for sensitive, robust, noninvasive, and in situ detection of disease onset at low cost. Akin to microrobotic systems, a combination of simple genetic rules, basic logic gates, and complex synthetic bioengineering principles are used to program bacterial vectors as living machines for detecting biomarkers of diseases, some of which cannot be detected with other sensing technologies. Bacterial whole-cell biosensors (BWCBs) can have wide-ranging functions from detection only, to detection and recording, to closed-loop detection-regulated treatment. In this review article, we first summarize the unique benefits of bacteria as living sensors. We then describe the different bacteria-based diagnosis approaches and provide examples of diagnosing various diseases and disorders. We also discuss the use of bacteria as imaging vectors for disease detection and image-guided surgery. We conclude by highlighting current challenges and opportunities for further exploration toward clinical translation of these bacteria-based systems.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

【 图 表 】

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