RESUMO
Self-repair is nature's way of protecting living organisms. However, most single cells are inherently less capable of self-repairing, which greatly limits their wide applications. Here, we present a self-assembly approach to create a nanoshell around the cell surface using nanoporous biohybrid aggregates. The biohybrid shells present self-repairing behaviour, resulting in high activity and extended viability of the encapsulated cells (eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells) in harsh micro-environments, such as under UV radiation, natural toxin invasion, high-light radiation and abrupt pH-value changes. Furthermore, an interaction mechanism is proposed and studied, which is successful to guide design and synthesis of self-repairing biohybrid shells using different bioactive molecules.
RESUMO
Amino acid-based biohybrids have been developed to self-assemble on the surface of desulfurizing bacteria to form nanothin and nanoporous shells. The shells not only endow the encapsulated cells with reusability, but also offer platforms to incorporate titania and magnetic nanoparticles to improve the desulfurizing activity and the separation efficiency.