High-performance, multifunctional bacteria-driven microswimmers are introduced using an optimized design and fabrication method for targeted drug delivery applications. These microswimmers are made of mostly single Escherichia coli bacterium attached to the surface of drug-loaded polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) microparticles with embedded magnetic nanoparticles. The PEM drug carriers are 1 μm in diameter and are intentionally fabricated with a more viscoelastic material than the particles previously studied in the literature. The resulting stochastic microswimmers are able to swim at mean speeds of up to 22.5 μm/s. They can be guided and targeted to specific cells, because they exhibit biased and directional motion under a chemoattractant gradient and a magnetic field, respectively. Moreover, we demonstrate the microswimmers delivering doxorubicin anticancer drug molecules, encapsulated in the polyelectrolyte multilayers, to 4T1 breast cancer cells under magnetic guidance in vitro. The results reveal the feasibility of using these active multifunctional bacteria-driven microswimmers to perform targeted drug delivery with significantly enhanced drug transfer, when compared with the passive PEM microparticles.
Keywords: bacteria; biohybrid; microswimmer; polyelectrolyte multilayer; targeted drug delivery.