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Tian L, Jackson K, He L, Khan S, Thirugnanasampanthar M, Gomez M, Bayat F, Didar TF, Hosseinidoust Z. High-throughput fabrication of antimicrobial phage microgels and example applications in food decontamination. Nat Protoc 2024; 19:1591-1622. [PMID: 38413781 DOI: 10.1038/s41596-024-00964-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Accepted: 12/14/2023] [Indexed: 02/29/2024]
Abstract
Engineered by nature, biological entities are exceptional building blocks for biomaterials. These entities can impart enhanced functionalities on the final material that are otherwise unattainable. However, preserving the bioactive functionalities of these building blocks during the material fabrication process remains a challenge. We describe a high-throughput protocol for the bottom-up self-assembly of highly concentrated phages into microgels while preserving and amplifying their inherent antimicrobial activity and biofunctionality. Each microgel is comprised of half a million cross-linked phages as the sole structural component, self-organized in aligned bundles. We discuss common pitfalls in the preparation procedure and describe optimization processes to ensure the preservation of the biofunctionality of the phage building blocks. This protocol enables the production of an antimicrobial spray containing the manufactured phage microgels, loaded with potent virulent phages that effectively reduced high loads of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli O157:H7 on red meat and fresh produce. Compared with other microgel preparation methods, our protocol is particularly well suited to biological materials because it is free of organic solvents and heat. Bench-scale preparation of base materials, namely microporous films (the template for casting microgels) and pure concentrated phage suspension, requires 3.5 h and 5 d, respectively. A single production run, that yields over 1,750,000 microgels, ranges from 2 h to 2 d depending on the rate of cross-linking chemistry. We expect that this platform will address bottlenecks associated with shelf-stability, preservation and delivery of phage for antimicrobial applications, expanding the use of phage for prevention and control of bacterial infections and contaminants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lei Tian
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Kyle Jackson
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Leon He
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Shadman Khan
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | | | - Mellissa Gomez
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Fereshteh Bayat
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| | - Tohid F Didar
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
| | - Zeinab Hosseinidoust
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
- Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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Tian L, He L, Jackson K, Saif A, Khan S, Wan Z, Didar TF, Hosseinidoust Z. Self-assembling nanofibrous bacteriophage microgels as sprayable antimicrobials targeting multidrug-resistant bacteria. Nat Commun 2022; 13:7158. [PMID: 36470891 PMCID: PMC9723106 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34803-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2022] [Accepted: 11/08/2022] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Nanofilamentous bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) are biofunctional, self-propagating, and monodisperse natural building blocks for virus-built materials. Minifying phage-built materials to microscale offers the promise of expanding the range function for these biomaterials to sprays and colloidal bioassays/biosensors. Here, we crosslink half a million self-organized phages as the sole structural component to construct each soft microgel. Through an in-house developed, biologics-friendly, high-throughput template method, over 35,000 phage-built microgels are produced from every square centimetre of a peelable microporous film template, constituting a 13-billion phage community. The phage-exclusive microgels exhibit a self-organized, highly-aligned nanofibrous texture and tunable auto-fluorescence. Further preservation of antimicrobial activity was achieved by making hybrid protein-phage microgels. When loaded with potent virulent phages, these microgels effectively reduce heavy loads of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli O157:H7 on food products, leading to up to 6 logs reduction in 9 hours and rendering food contaminant free.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lei Tian
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Leon He
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Kyle Jackson
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Ahmed Saif
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Shadman Khan
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada
| | - Zeqi Wan
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Tohid F Didar
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada
- Michael DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Zeinab Hosseinidoust
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L7, Canada.
- School of Biomedical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada.
- Michael DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada.
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Peivandi A, Jackson K, Tian L, He L, Mahmood A, Fradin C, Hosseinidoust Z. Inducing Microscale Structural Order in Phage Nanofilament Hydrogels with Globular Proteins. ACS Biomater Sci Eng 2021; 8:340-347. [PMID: 34905337 DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.1c01112] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
Biological hydrogels play important physiological roles in the body. These hydrogels often contain ordered subdomains that provide mechanical toughness and other tissue-specific functionality. Filamentous bacteriophages are nanofilaments with a high aspect ratio that can self-assemble into liquid crystalline domains that could be designed to mimic ordered biological hydrogels and can thus find applications in biomedical engineering. We have previously reported hydrogels of pure cross-linked liquid crystalline filamentous phage formed at very high concentrations exhibiting a tightly packed microstructure and high stiffness. In this work, we report a method for inducing self-assembly of filamentous phage into liquid crystalline hydrogels at concentrations that are several orders of magnitude below that of lyotropic liquid crystal formation, thus creating structural order but a less densely packed microstructure. Hybrid hydrogels of M13 phage and bovine serum albumin (0.25 w/v%) were formed and shown to adsorb up to 16× their weight in water. Neither component gelled on its own at the low concentrations used, suggesting synergistic action between the two components in the formation of the hydrogel. The hybrid hydrogels exhibited repetitive self-healing under physiological conditions and at room temperature, autofluorescence in three channels, and antibacterial activity toward Escherichia coli host cells. Furthermore, the hybrid hydrogels exhibited a more than 2× higher ability to pack water compared to BSA-only hydrogels and 2× lower compression modulus compared to tightly packed M13-only hydrogels, suggesting that our method could be used to create hydrogels with tunable mechanical properties and pore structure through the addition of globular proteins, while maintaining bioactivity and microscale structural order.
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Affiliation(s)
- Azadeh Peivandi
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Kyle Jackson
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Lei Tian
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Leon He
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada
| | - Ahmad Mahmood
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada
| | - Cécile Fradin
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M1, Canada.,Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1, Canada
| | - Zeinab Hosseinidoust
- Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L7, Canada.,Michael DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
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