Micromotors are recognized as promising candidates for untethered micromanipulation and targeted cargo transport. Their future application is, however, hindered by the low efficiency of drug encapsulation and their poor adaptability in physiological conditions. To address these challenges, one potential solution is to incorporate micromotors with biological materials as the combination of functional biological entities and smart artificial parts represents a manipulable and biologically friendly approach. This dissertation focuses on the development of custom-designed micromotors combined with sperm and their potential applications on targeted diseases treatment. By means of 2D and 3D lithography methods, microstructures with complex configurations can be fabricated for specific demands. Bovine and human sperm are both for the first time explored as drug carriers thanks to their high encapsulation efficiency of hydrophilic drugs, their powerful self-propulsion and their improved drug-uptake relying on the somatic-cell fusion ability. The hybrid micromotors containing drug loaded sperm and constructed artificial enhancements can be self-propelled by the sperm flagella and remotely guided and released to the target at high precision by employing weak external magnetic fields. As a result, micromotors based on both bovine and human sperm show significant anticancer effect. The application here can be further broadened to other biological environments, in particular to the blood stream, showing the potential on the treatment of blood diseases like blood clotting. Finally, to enhance the treatment efficiency, in particular to control sperm number and drug dose, three strategies are demonstrated to transport swarms of sperm. This research paves the way for the precision medicine based on engineered sperm-based micromotors.

Ces travaux de thèse pluridisciplinaires à l‘interface entre biocatalyse et nanomatériaux visent la conception de matériaux biohybrides innovants par assemblage dans des conditions douces de matériaux inorganiques de type hydroxydes doubles lamellaires (HDL) avec des enzymes. La première partie de ce mémoire est consacrée à la caractérisation des interactions physico-chimiques entre les HDL et la fructose-6-phosphate aldolase (FSA) catalysant la formation stéréosélective de liaisons C-C pour conduire à des polyols chiraux. Les structures lamellaires HDL permettent un confinement efficace de systèmes enzymatiques grâce à leur structure bidimensionnelle poreuse, leurs propriétés physico-chimiques favorables à l‘échange ionique et leur biocompatibilité. Différentes stratégies d‘immobilisation de la FSA dans des matrices d‘HDL ont été explorées, le taux d‘immobilisation et l‘activité biocatalytique étant fortement dépendant de la méthode d‘assemblage et de la nature des phases HDL. Le taux d‘immobilisation de l‘enzyme obtenu par coprécipitaton est supérieur à celui obtenu par adsorption. Dans une deuxième partie, un bioréacteur a été élaboré par un assemblage hiérarchisé constitué de la FSA, de nanoplaquettes d‘HDL et de billes de polysaccharide, ce dernier jouant le rôle de matrice macrostructurante. De façon notable, le taux d‘encapsulation de l‘enzyme dans la matrice macroscopique est amélioré lorsque le biocatalyseur est pré-encapsulé dans les nanoplaquettes d‘HDL. Ceci est attribué aux interactions électrostatiques favorables entre les chaînes de polysaccharide et les HDL, facilitant une charge de matière plus importante. L‘efficacité catalytique du bioréacteur obtenu et sa recyclabilité ont été démontrés. Dans la troisième partie de cette thèse, nous décrivons pour la première fois la conception de bionanoréacteurs enzymes@HDL par co-immobilisation de systèmes bi- ou tétra-enzymatiques dans les HDL permettant de réaliser des cascades multienzymatiques biomimétiques. L‘immobilisation des différentes enzymes prises séparément a d‘abord été optimisée afin de déterminer les conditions de co-immobilisation et de réaliser les cascades biocatalytiques en phase hétérogène. Ces bionanoréacteurs, dont nous avons démontré la recyclabilité, ont été appliqués pour la synthèse de sucres phosphorylés de série D. Enfin, une cascade multienzymatique a été conçue de novo en solution aqueuse et optimisée pour synthétiser différents sucres phosphorylés rares de série L. / This multidisciplinary thesis at the biocatalysis/nanomaterial interface perfectly aims at designing innovative biohybrid materials by the assembly of inorganic materials the Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH) with enzymes under mild conditions. The first part of this thesis is devoted to the characterization of physico-chemical interactions between the LDH and the fructose-6-phosphate aldolase (FSA) catalyzing the stereoselective C-C bond formation to provide chiral polyols. LDH structures allow the effective confinement of enzymatic systems thanks to their opened two-dimensional structure as well as their chemical surface properties at the nanoscale and their biocompatibility. The FSA immobilization in different LDH matrices by different methods was studied. Biocatalytic activity is highly dependent on the method of assembling, modulating the final amount of FSA. The retaining activity rate of co-precipitated material was higher than that obtained for the adsorbed enzyme. In a second part, a bionanoreactor was developed based on a hierarchized assembly of FSA, LDH nanoplatelets and polysaccharide beads acting as a macrostructuring matrices. Significantly, the encapsulated enzyme rate in the beads was improved when the biocatalyst was pre-encapsulated in LDH nanoplatelets. This is attributed to favorable electrostatic interactions between the polysaccharide chains and LDH, facilitating a higher catalyst loading. The catalytic efficiency of the prepared bioreactor and its recyclability were demonstrated. In the third part of this thesis, we describe for the first time the design of bionanoreactors ―enzymes@LDH‖ by co-immobilisation of two and four enzymes in LDH allowing biomimetic multienzymatic cascades. We first studied the immobilization of the different enzymes taken separately. Then we worked on the optimization of the biocatalytic cascades in heterogeneous phase. These bionanoreactors, for which we have shown the recyclability, have been applied to the synthesis of D-series phosphorylated sugars. Finally, a multienzymatic cascade was de novo designed in aqueous homogeneous solution. It was optimized for the synthesis of rare L-phosphorylated sugars.