Decorating Bacteria with a Therapeutic Nanocoating for Synergistically Enhanced Biotherapy

Disorders in the gut microbiota have been implicated in various diseases, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, diabetes, and cancers. Oral microecologics are of great importance due to their ability to directly intervene the gut microbiome as well as their noninvasiveness and low side effects, while have suffered from low bioavailability and a single therapeutic effect. Here, probiotics are coated with a therapeutic nanocoating for synergistically enhanced biotherapy, a method inspired by the robust protective and therapeutic effectiveness of silkworm cocoon. With its transition from a random coil to β-sheet conformation, silk fibroin can self-assemble onto the surface of bacteria. By a simple layer-by-layer procedure, an entire nanocoating can be formed along with a near quantitative coating ratio and almost uninfluenced bacterial viability. Thanks to its protective barrier role and innate pharmaceutical activity, silk fibroin nanocoating endows the coated bacteria with a markedly improved survival against gastric insults and a synergistically enhanced therapeutic effect in a murine model of intestinal mucositis. This work demonstrates how therapeutic elements can be combined with probiotics via a simple coating strategy and proposes an alternative to enhance bioavailability and treatment efficacy of oral microecologics.