Inorganic nanomaterials empowering bacteria: a new paradigm for biomedical applications

Bacterial therapy holds great potential in biomedicine, but its clinical application is hindered by challenges such as in vivo instability and biosafety concerns. Inorganic nanomaterials, with their excellent structural stability, multifunctional characteristics, and externally triggerable therapeutic properties, offer unique advantages in addressing these challenges. This article reviews the emerging strategy of empowering bacteria with inorganic nanomaterials to construct functional hybrid systems. We first summarize construction strategies such as surface modification, intracellular mineralization, and microcapsule encapsulation. Then we focus on how inorganic nanomaterials comprehensively endow bacteria with new diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities through various mechanisms-providing physical protection, enhancing multimodal imaging, and introducing photothermal/magnetothermal synergistic therapies. For these mechanisms, we discuss in detail the progress of applications of these empowered hybrid systems across various fields, including antitumor therapy, targeted drug delivery, treatment of drug-resistant bacterial infections, and regulation of intestinal microbiota. Finally, we analyze the current challenges regarding biosafety and clinical translation, and look forward to future development directions combining synthetic biology, aiming to provide a theoretical foundation for the development of next-generation intelligent biomedical platforms.