蓝细菌是唯一能够在地球上进行含氧光合作用的原核生物。除了他们作为初级生产者的传统角色之外,蓝藻还合成丰富的次级代谢产物,包括类胡萝卜素,生物碱,肽,据报道具有药用潜力。更重要的是,合成生物学技术的进步进一步扩大了其潜在的生物医学应用,特别是使用活/工程蓝细菌,为未来的疾病治疗提供有希望和有吸引力的策略。为了增进了解并促进将来的应用,本文旨在讨论基于蓝藻的生物医学工程的现状和未来前景。首先,总结了蓝藻与生物活性化合物的天然产物和重金属吸附等生物医学应用相关的特定性质。随后,基于蓝细菌的这些特性,我们讨论了它们在各种疾病模型中的应用进展,如缺氧微环境缓解,伤口愈合,药物输送,等等。最后,未来的前景包括蓝藻次生代谢产物的进一步探索,将蓝藻原位合成的生物活性化合物与医学诊断和治疗相结合,并对体内应用的优化进行了批判性的阐述。该综述将促进蓝藻生物医学工程的相关研究及其在临床试验中的实际应用。
Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes capable of performing oxygenic photosynthesis on Earth. Besides their traditional roles serving as primary producers, cyanobacteria also synthesize abundant secondary metabolites including carotenoids, alkaloids, peptides, which have been reported to possess medicinal potentials. More importantly, the advancement of synthetic biology technology has further expanded their potential biomedical applications especially using living/engineered cyanobacteria, providing promising and attractive strategies for future disease treatments. To improve the understanding and to facilitate future applications, this review aims to discuss the current status and future prospects of cyanobacterial-based biomedical engineering. Firstly, specific properties of cyanobacteria related with biomedical applications like their natural products of bioactive compounds and heavy metal adsorption were concluded. Subsequently, based on these properties of cyanobacteria, we discussed the progress of their applications in various disease models like hypoxia microenvironment alleviation, wound healing, drug delivery, and so on. Finally, the future prospects including further exploration of cyanobacteria secondary metabolites, the integration of bioactive compounds synthesized by cyanobacteria in situ with medical diagnosis and treatment, and the optimization of in vivo application were critically presented. The review will promote the studies related with cyanobacteria-based biomedical engineering and its practical application in clinical trials in the future.