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The engineering of chemical communication at the micro/nanoscale is a key emergent topic in micro/nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and related areas. However, the field is still in its infancy; previous advances, although scarce, have mainly focused on communication between abiotic micro/nanosystems or between microvesicles and living cells. Here, we have implemented a nanoprogrammed cross-kingdom communication involving two different microorganisms and tailor-made nanodevices acting as "nanotranslators". Information flows from the sender cells (bacteria) to the nanodevice and from the nanodevice to receiver cells (yeasts) in a hierarchical way, allowing communication between two microorganisms that otherwise would not interact.

[EN] Introduction: Breast cancer has the highest mortality rate among cancers in women. Patients suffering from certain breast cancers, such as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), lack effective treatments. This represents a clinical concern due to the associated poor prognosis and high mortality. As an approach to succeed over conventional therapy limitations, we present herein the design and evaluation of a novel nanodevice based on enzyme-functionalized gold nanoparticles to efficiently perform enzyme prodrug therapy (EPT) in breast cancer cells. Results: In particular, the enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP) which oxidizes the prodrug indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) to release toxic oxidative species is incorporated on gold nanoconjugates (HRP-AuNCs), obtaining an efficient nanoplatform for EPT. The nanodevice is biocompatible and effectively internalized by breast cancer cell lines. Remarkably, co-treatment with HRP-AuNCs and IAA (HRP-AuNCs/IAA) reduces the viability of breast cancer cells below 5%. Interestingly, 3D tumor models (multicellular tumor spheroid-like cultures) co-treated with HRP-AuNCs/IAA exhibit a 74% reduction of cell viability, whereas the free formulated components (HRP, IAA) have no effect. Conclusion: Altogether, our results demonstrate that the designed HRP-AuNCs nanoformulation shows a remarkable therapeutic performance. These findings might help to bypass the clinical limitations of current tumor enzyme therapies and advance towards the use of nanoformulations for EPT in breast cancer., Gema Vivo-Llorca thanks the Generalitat Valenciana for her fellowship ACIF/2017/072. Paula Díez thanks the Generalitat Valenciana for her contract APOSTD/2020/153 and to the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Social Fund for the financial support "Sara Borrell", CD20/00120. Antoni Llopis-Lorente thanks funding from the European Union¿s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 847675. Images were prepared using Servier Medical Art (https://smart.servier.com/). We thank the Spanish Government (project RTI2018-100910-B-C41 (MCUI/AEI/FEDER, UE); SAF2017-84689-R-B (MCUI/ AEI/FEDER, UE)) and the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO/2018/024 and PROMETEO/2019/065) for support. A pre-print version of this work was published as a chapter of the PhD thesis of the first author Gema VivoLlorca

[EN] The development of new food preservatives is essential to prevent foodborne outbreaks or food spoilage due to microbial growth, enzymatic activity or oxidation. Furthermore, new compounds that substitute the commonly used synthetic food preservatives are needed to stifle the rising problem of microbial resistance. In this scenario, we report herein, as far as we know, for the first time the use of the zein protein as a gating moiety and its application for the controlled release of essential oil components (EOCs). The design of microdevices consist of mesoporous silica particles loaded with essential oils components (thymol, carvacrol and cinnamaldehyde) and functionalized with the zein (prolamin) protein found in corn as a molecular gate. The zein protein grafted on the synthesized microdevices is degraded by the proteolytic action of bacterial enzymatic secretions with the consequent release of the loaded essential oil components efficiently inhibiting bacterial growth. The results allow us to conclude that the new microdevice presented here loaded with the essential oil component cinnamaldehyde improved the antimicrobial properties of the free compound by decreasing volatility and increasing local concentration., This research was funded by the Government of Spain (projects RTI2018-100910-B-C41, RTI2018-101599-B-C22-AR and RTI2018-101599-B-C21-AR (MCUI/FEDER, EU)) and the Generalitat Valenciana (project PROMETEO 2018/024, grant numbers ACIF/2016/023 and APOSTD/2019/118).

In nature, coordinated communication between different entities enables a group to accomplish sophisticated functionalities that go beyond those carried out by individual agents. The possibility of programming and developing coordinated communication networks at the nanoscale—based on the exchange of chemical messengers—may open new approaches in biomedical and communication areas. Here, a stimulus-responsive circular model of communication between three nanodevices based on enzyme-functionalized Janus Au–mesoporous silica capped nanoparticles is presented. The output in the community of nanoparticles is only observed after a hierarchically programmed flow of chemical information between the members., A community of three nanodevices communicates through a hierarchically programmed circular flow of chemical information between members.