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The human gut microbiome has a big influence on health<\/p>\n
Science Photo Library\/Alamy<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Genetically engineered gut bacteria can break down the compounds that contribute to kidney stones. Tailoring bacteria to tweak the gut microbiome<\/a> in this way could go beyond treating kidney stones and lead to new treatments for a range of conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease<\/a> and colon cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gut microbiota has a big influence on our health and being able to manipulate that is a promising avenue,\u201d says Weston Whitaker<\/a> at Stanford University in California. But previous attempts to do so ran into a problem. Bacteria introduced into the gut, whether those are naturally-occurring probiotics<\/a> or genetically modified strains, often struggle to colonise the large intestine, because they have to compete with existing microbes.<\/p>\n So Whitaker and his colleagues took a slightly different approach. They genetically modified<\/a> a bacterium already abundant in most people\u2019s guts, called Phocaeicola vulgatus. \u201cWe wanted something that was going to be compatible with colonising the gut,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The team made three genetic changes. The first enabled the bacterium to break down compounds in food called oxalates, which contribute to kidney stones<\/a>. The second allowed it to digest a carbohydrate found in red seaweeds known as porphyran. This gave the bacterium a competitive edge over existing gut microbes, most of which cannot utilise porphyran. The final tweak made a gene essential for the bacterium\u2019s survival dependent upon porphyran. Together, these changes allowed the researchers to control the growth of the microbe \u2013 adding porphyran encouraged the bacterium\u2019s spread, while restricting porphyran killed it off.<\/p>\n The researchers fed 12 rats a high-oxalate diet for four days, then treated half of them with the genetically modified bacteria and the other half with a strain that couldn\u2019t break down oxalates. Porphyran was added to all of the animals\u2019 daily diets. After six days, the rats treated with the engineered bacteria had, on average, 47 per cent less oxalate in their urine compared with the control group.<\/p>\n The team then tested the engineered microbes in nine people with enteric hyperoxaluria, a condition in which the body absorbs too much oxalate, causing recurrent kidney stones. All participants consumed 10 grams of porphyran daily for 28 days. Compared with three people who have the condition but didn\u2019t undergo treatment, those who did had 27 per cent less oxalate in their urine, on average.<\/p>\n This reduction wasn\u2019t statistically significant, probably due to the small sample size, says Whitaker. But there is still reason to believe the bacterium could prevent kidney stones, as other clinical trials suggest a 20 per cent reduction in oxalate is enough to reduce symptoms, he says.<\/p>\n While none of the participants experienced serious side effects, those treated with the genetically engineered gut microbe were more likely to have abdominal pain, diarrhoea and other mild gastrointestinal problems.<\/p>\n A bigger issue is genetic analysis of the human participants\u2019 gut microbiomes revealed, eight weeks after stopping the supplement, only four of them still had bacteria capable of digesting porphyran. This indicates the engineered bacteria had swapped genetic material with existing gut microbes. This shouldn\u2019t cause any safety concerns for the participants, but it is an issue that will have to be ironed out in future studies, says Whitaker.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this [approach] is a real breakthrough,\u201d says Christoph Thaiss<\/a>, also at Stanford University, who wasn\u2019t involved with the research. He says the work shows it is possible to engineer gut microbes with therapeutic effects and get them to reliably colonise the gut \u2013 a strategy that could treat a range of conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that our gut microbiota is associated with many different diseases \u2013 diabetes, heart disease, cancer,\u201d says Whitaker. \u201cBut we don\u2019t know exactly what it is about the microbiota that is causing or preventing disease.\u201d Untangling those relationships will be necessary in order for researchers to take full advantage of this approach, he says.<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The human gut microbiome has a big influence on health Science Photo Library\/Alamy Genetically engineered gut bacteria can…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49785,49786,815,4078,20302,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-71191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-drug-trials","9":"tag-genetic-medication","10":"tag-genetics","11":"tag-gut-health","12":"tag-microbiome","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114871255938810150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}