Bacterial
microrobots are an emerging living material in the field
of diagnostics. However, it is an important challenge to make bacterial
microrobots with both controlled motility and specific functions.
Herein, magnetically driven diagnostic bacterial microrobots are prepared
by standardized and modular synthetic biology methods. To ensure mobility,
the Mms6 protein is displayed on the surface of bacteria and is exploited
for magnetic biomineralization. This gives the bacterial microrobot
the ability to cruise flexibly and rapidly with a magnetization intensity
up to about 18.65 emu g–1. To achieve the diagnostic
function, the Cas12a protein is displayed on the bacterial surface
and is used for aquatic pathogen nucleic acid detection. This allows
the bacterial microrobot to achieve sensitive, rapid, and accurate
on-site nucleic acid detection, with detection limits of 8 copies
μL–1 for decapod iridescent virus 1 (DIV1)
and 7 copies μL–1 for white spot syndrome
virus (WSSV). In particular, the diagnostic results based on the bacterial
microrobots remained consistent with the gold standard test results
when tested on shrimp tissue. This approach is a flexible and customizable
strategy for building bacterial microrobots, providing a reliable
and versatile solution for the design of bacterial microrobots.