Magnetic Nanoagent Coated with an Activated Macrophage Membrane for Colorimetric Detection of Bacteria

The construction of cell mimics replicating the surface landscape and biological functions of the cell membrane offers promising prospects for biomedical research and applications. Inspired by the inherent recognition capability of immune cells toward pathogens, we have fabricated activated macrophage membrane-coated magnetic silicon nanoparticles (aM-MSNPs) in this work as an isolation and recognition tool for enhanced bacterial analysis. Specifically, the natural protein receptors on the activated macrophage membrane endow the MSNPs with a broad-spectrum binding capacity to different pathogen species. By further incorporation of a tyramide amplification strategy, direct naked-eye analysis of specific bacteria with a detection limit of 10 CFU/mL can be achieved. Moreover, application to the diagnosis of urinary tract infections has also been validated, and positive samples spiked with bacteria can be clearly distinguished with an accuracy of 100%. This work may enrich cell membrane-based architectures and provide an experimental paradigm for point-of-care testing (POCT) detection of bacteria.