High-yield bioproduction of virus-free virus-like P4-EKORhE multi-lysin transducing particles as an antimicrobial gene therapeutic

Abstract

A description of the construction of the bioengineered P4-EKORhE and a comprehensive method for producing very high yields (up to 1012 particles per millilitre) enable the use of virus-like particles to transduce genetically encoded antimicrobials through a combination of synthetic biology and optimised upstream and downstream processing. The final product, a gene-delivered antimicrobial in the form of the multi-lysins cassette, is fully functional before and after packaging within P4-EKORhE particles. The antimicrobial activity of the multilysins cassette, characterized by its lysis proteins, was tested in vivo in both pure bacterial Escherichia coli (E. coli) cultures and in a model of infection using A549 immortalised human epithelial tissue cell cultures. This work exemplifies several bioproduction methods and demonstrates how the virology of the P4 and P2 phages can be harnessed to establish a bioprocess for producing transducing particles at very high yields, avoiding contamination by the natural virus while maintaining the antimicrobial effectiveness of the final product.