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Enhancing phage therapy by coating single bacteriophage-infected bacteria with polymer to preserve phage vitality

Nature Biomedical Engineering volume 9, pages 1155–1171 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The efficacy of bacteriophages in treating bacterial infections largely depends on the phages’ vitality, which is impaired when they are naturally released from their hosts, as well as by culture media, manufacturing processes and other insults. Here, by wrapping phage-invaded bacteria individually with a polymeric nanoscale coating to preserve the microenvironment on phage-induced bacterial lysis, we show that, compared with naturally released phages, which have severely degraded proteins in their tail, the vitality of phages isolated from polymer-coated bacteria is maintained. Such latent phages could also be better amplified, and they more efficiently bound and lysed bacteria when clearing bacterial biofilms. In mice with bacterially induced enteritis and associated arthritis, latent phages released from orally administered bacteria coated with a polymer that dissolves at neutral pH had higher bioavailability and led to substantially better therapeutic outcomes than the administration of uncoated phages.

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Fig. 1: Wrapping of single bacteriophage-infected bacteria with a polymeric nanoscale coating to preserve the vitality of the replicating phages.
Fig. 2: Preparation of In-phages by forming a nanocoating.
Fig. 3: High vitality of intact phages.
Fig. 4: Abilities of In-phages in binding and lysing bacteria and clearing bacterial biofilms.
Fig. 5: High in vivo vitality of intact phages.
Fig. 6: Underlying mechanisms for the high vitality of In-phages.
Fig. 7: Therapeutic value of In-phages in treating intestinal infection and associated arthritis.
Fig. 8: Biosafety of In-phages.

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Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions described in the study are provided within the paper and its Supplementary Information. The proteomics data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD054755. The raw and analysed datasets generated during the study are available for research purposes from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P. He for offering the phage of S. aureus. This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFA0909400, J.L.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22425505, J.L.; 22307077, G.X.; 32201144, S.L.; 22375127, Y.P.) and the Innovative Research Team of High-Level Local Universities in Shanghai (SHSMU-ZDCX20210700, Y.P.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Sisi Lin, Guocheng Xie.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Shanghai Cancer Institute, Shanghai Key Laboratory for Nucleic Acid Chemistry and Nanomedicine, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Sisi Lin, Guocheng Xie, Lu Meng & Jinyao Liu

  2. Shanghai Institute of Precision Medicine, Ninth People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Jun He

  3. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Lu Meng

  4. Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Drug Target Identification and Delivery, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Yan Pang

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Contributions

J.L. supervised the project. J.L., S.L. and G.X. designed the experiments. S.L. and G.X. performed and interpreted the experiments. S.L. conducted cellular and animal experiments. J.H. performed the single-particle cryo-TEM experiment. L.M. and Y.P. provided analytical tools, critical comments and suggestions. G.X., S.L. and J.L. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Jinyao Liu.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Characterization of the coating on bacteria.

a, Representative TEM images of the sections of S. Typhimurium and copolymer-coated phage-infected S. Typhimurium. Scale bars, 500 nm. The formed nanocoating structure on bacterial surface was highlighted in an enlarged view. Scale bar, 100 nm. b, c, Flow cytometry (b) histograms and (c) scatter plots of S. Typhimurium and copolymer-coated phage-infected S. Typhimurium, respectively. d, Percentage of copolymer-coated phage-infected S. Typhimurium after coating formation. e, MFI of S. Typhimurium and Cy3-labeled copolymer-coated phage-infected S. Typhimurium, respectively. Data are represented as mean ± s.d. (n = 5). P values were determined using two-tailed t-test.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Proteomic analysis of In-phages and Ex-phages.

a, b, The (a) principal component analysis and (b) Venn diagram of the protein expression data in Ex-phages and In-phages. c, Dotrod-heatmap of the proteins of Ex-phages and In-phages. d, A co-occurrence network constructed from the relative abundances of differential proteins in Ex-phages versus In-phages. e–g, Comparative analysis of (e) DNA ligase, (f) DNA helicase, and (g) ribonucleoside-diphosphate reductase. Data are represented as mean ± s.d. (n = 3). P values were determined using two-tail t-test.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Inhibitory effect of phages on the growth of S. Typhimurium and the colonization in the gut.

a, Experimental design for the animal study of S. Typhimurium infection. b, Bacterial counts in the feces. c, Confocal images of the colon sections stained with S. Typhimurium O antibody (green) and DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 50 µm. d, Levels of phages in the feces. e, Abundance of phages in the whole intestine at the end of treatment. Data are represented as mean ± s.d. (n = 5–6). P value was determined using one-way ANOVA. Elements created with BioRender.com.

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Lin, S., Xie, G., He, J. et al. Enhancing phage therapy by coating single bacteriophage-infected bacteria with polymer to preserve phage vitality. Nat. Biomed. Eng 9, 1155–1171 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-025-01354-3

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