bims-livmat 2025-11-23 papers

ACS Chem Neurosci. 2025 Nov 21.

Engineered Commensals as Next-Generation Drug Delivery Agents for Nose-to-Brain Therapeutics in Neurological Disorders.

Central nervous system (CNS) disorders such as Alzheimer's diseases, Parkinson's diseases, stroke, and glioma remain among the most challenging to treat, largely due to the restrictive nature of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). In recent years, intranasal administration has emerged as a noninvasive route for CNS drug delivery. Due to its anatomical advantage over the traditional route, the nose-to-brain route can easily bypass the BBB and deliver drugs directly to the brain. Parallel advances in the interface of synthetic biology and materials engineering have led to the development of engineered living materials (ELMs) dynamic structures that embed mammalian cells, bacteria, or viruses within self-renewing or engineered matrices. These bioengineered systems have been developed as next-generation therapeutic platforms for various biomedical applications, utilizing intrinsic or engineered capabilities such as disease-targeted migration, localized therapeutic production, adaptive delivery, immune activation, and metabolic regulation. Therefore, developing a bioengineered commensal based delivery system that uses the intranasal route to effectively deliver drug across the BBB could represent a transformative strategy for treating CNS disorder and advancing neurotherapeutic research.

Keywords: Engineered Living Materials (ELMs); Living Therapeutics; Neurodegenerative Diseases (NDD); Neurotherapy; Synthetic Biology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acschemneuro.5c00874

Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2025 Nov 15. pii: S0169-409X(25)00223-6. [Epub ahead of print]228 115738

Living materials for gas therapy.

Pei Pan, Tao Liu, Lu Zhang, Xian-Zheng Zhang.

The clinical translation of gas therapy, which employs medical gases such as nitric oxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), and sulfur dioxide (SO2), is mainly limited by the absence of delivery systems that can provide precise spatiotemporal control in complex pathological environments. While conventional nanocarriers have improved in gas delivery, they often suffer from limited biocompatibility, poor targeting, and insufficient responsiveness. Recently, living materials emerged as a promising and innovative paradigm. Engineered from biological entities such as bacteria, cells, and algae, or their biomimetic derivatives, these materials inherently exhibit bioactive functions, including disease tropism, immunomodulation, and dynamic responsiveness to microenvironmental cues, thereby enabling intelligent gas generation and controlled release. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in living material-based gas therapy, with emphasis on classification according to biological origin and engineering design principles. We further discuss their mechanisms, including genetic programming for autonomous gas production and hybrid architectures for stimuli-responsive release, and highlight their therapeutic efficacy in cancer, inflammatory diseases, and tissue regeneration. Finally, we outline the major challenges in biosafety and scalability, and provide forward-looking perspectives on the integration of synthetic biology and multimodal therapeutic strategies to advance the field of precision gas medicine.

Keywords: Biohybrid; Disease therapy; Gas therapy; Living material; Microorganism

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addr.2025.115738

ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2025 Nov 18.

Nature-Inspired Living Materials for Health, Energy, and Sustainability.

Fanghua Li, Paolo Fornasiero, Peng Xu, Hengjia Jia, Jiazheng Xu, Haiyang Sun, Klaus Müllen, Xingcai Zhang, Kostya S Novoselov.

Nature serves as an inexhaustible source of inspiration for advanced material design. While nature-inspired nonliving materials exhibit exceptional properties, they typically lack the dynamic functionalities of living systems, such as self-healing and environmental responsiveness. To bridge this gap, living materials, which integrate living cells (e.g., bacteria, fungi, algae) within abiotic matrices, have emerged as transformative platforms. These materials harness cellular functions (e.g., biomineralization, programmable metabolism) to achieve unprecedented adaptability and sustainability. In this review, we categorized living materials into two distinct types based on the role of the cells: (1) cells acting as platforms for material synthesis and (2) cells integrated as components of materials for functionalization. We summarized the characteristics of living and nonliving materials inspired by nature, with applications of living materials in energy, medicine, catalysis, concrete, and soft robotics. We further discussed advanced manufacturing techniques for living materials. We envision that the design principles of living materials will advance health, energy, and sustainability.

Keywords: 3D printing; advanced manufacturing; genetic engineering; living materials; microfluidics; natural materials; soft robotics; sustainability

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsabm.5c01099

Front Vet Sci. 2025 ;12 1608791

Evaluation of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS 33 to therapeutic effects on a murine model of Escherichia coli-induced endometritis.

Mingchao Liu, Xiangfu Wen, Mingque Feng, Yan Sun, Xiaowei Feng, Tianxiong Jin, Bei Liu, Shahid Muhammad, Kangping Liu, Jia Cheng, Jianguo Li.

Introduction: Bovine endometritis is a common postpartum uterine disease in dairy cows that is traditionally treated with antibiotics. However, excessive antibiotic use can lead to antimicrobial resistance and treatment failure. Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33, a novel probiotic strain isolated from the uterus of a healthy cow, exhibits strong antibacterial potential. This study aimed to investigate the probiotic characteristics of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33 through whole-genome sequencing and to evaluate its anti-inflammatory effects in a mouse model of Escherichia coli-induced endometritis.
Methods: Whole-genome sequencing was performed to identify genes related to antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and immune-regulatory activities, and to confirm the absence of antibiotic resistance and virulence genes. Female mice were induced with Escherichia coli endometritis and treated with Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33 at a dose of 1 × 10⁹ CFU/mL. Uterine morphology, wet weight index, inflammatory cell infiltration, cytokine levels (IL-6, IL-1β, IL-8, TNF-α), and uterine microbiota composition were analyzed.
Results: Genomic analysis revealed that Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33 contains multiple functional genes related to antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and immune-modulatory pathways and lacks antibiotic resistance or pathogenic determinants. Treatment with Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33 significantly alleviated uterine inflammation, reduced the wet weight index (p < 0.05), and improved histopathological lesions. It also decreased pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and inflammatory cell infiltration, while enhancing microbial diversity and increasing the abundance of beneficial bacterial taxa.
Discussion: Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33 demonstrates strong anti-inflammatory and microbiota-regulating properties in Escherichia coli-induced endometritis, highlighting its potential as a safe and effective probiotic alternative to antibiotics. Further validation in dairy cows is warranted to confirm its therapeutic potential under practical conditions.

Keywords: Escherichia coli; Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CRS33; bovine endometritis; inflammatory factors; microbiome; murine model; probiotic therapy; whole-genome

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2025.1608791

J Tissue Eng. 2025 Jan-Dec;16:16 20417314251389333

Controlled spatial and temporal release of neurotrophic growth factor from genetically modified tissue engineering living scaffolds.

Hannah H Lee, Sam E Lien, Viviana Alpizar Vargas, Robert B Shultz, Franco A Laimo, Kritika S Katiyar, D Kacy Cullen.

Peripheral nerve injuries (PNIs) affect thousands of patients yearly, often resulting in loss of function, sensation, and chronic pain. In critical-size defects, advanced surgical repair strategies often fail to restore full function. A key limitation is the lack of sustained, localized delivery of biological cues for axonal regeneration, such as growth factors. Glial-cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is known to promote axonal growth, Schwann cell migration, and neuronal survival, but uncontrolled release may cause axonal entrapment. We previously developed tissue-engineered nerve grafts (TENGs) composed of two neuronal populations connected by stretch-grown axons. In this study, we genetically modified the distal population to express human GDNF under a Tet-on inducible promoter, temporally controlling GDNF release through doxycycline administration. Modified TENGs survived implantation in a 1.5-cm rat sciatic nerve defect, supporting future studies. This approach offers a promising platform for spatially and temporally controlled neurotrophic factor delivery from tissue-engineered living scaffolds.

Keywords: GDNF; axons; cell engineering; controlled release; genetic modification; growth factors; living scaffold; peripheral nerve injury; tissue engineering

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/20417314251389333