Engineered Yeast Probiotic Developed to Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease

AHA Publisher — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 07:00:56 +0000

Brigham and Women’s Hospital via EurekAlert – The world of microbes living in the human gut can have far-reaching effects on human health. Multiple diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), are tied to the balance of these microbes, suggesting that restoring the right balance could help treat disease. Many probiotics — living yeasts or bacteria — that are currently on the market have been optimized through evolution in the context of a healthy gut. However, in order to treat complex diseases such as IBD, a probiotic would need to serve many functions, including an ability to turn off inflammation, reverse damage and restore the gut microbiome. Given all of these needs, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital have developed a “designer” probiotic — a thoughtfully engineered yeast that can induce multiple effects for treating IBD. Preclinical results from their work are published in Nature Medicine. “We’ve taken yeast — the very yeast that’s used to make beer — and we’ve given it the ability to sense inflammation and secrete an anti-inflammatory molecule,” said corresponding author Francisco Quintana, PhD, an investigator in the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at the Brigham. “We call this new platform ‘Y-bots’ (yeast robots) and see the potential here for developing therapeutics that can treat diseases of the gut tissue and more.” Previous research from the Quintana lab has helped illuminate the connection between the gut and diseases that affect the brain, suggesting potential applications for engineering probiotics beyond IBD. Quintana and colleagues developed their probiotic using Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast used in winemaking, baking and brewing. Using the gene editing technology CRISPR/Cas9, the researchers introduced genetic elements that could sense inflammation and respond to it by secreting an enzyme that can degrade a key molecule involved in inflammation. The engineered yeast can secrete different levels of enzyme, depending upon how much of the inflammatory signal is present at a location in the gut. This means that the probiotic can have a highly localized response to inflammation. In mice, the engineered yeast successfully suppressed intestinal inflammation, reduced fibrosis and restored a balanced gut microbiome. To bring this new therapeutic platform to bear on IBD and other diseases in humans, Quintana and colleagues will need to conduct safety studies. They also plan to further refine and test the engineered yeast to see if they can speed up tissue repair. Beyond IBD, the team plans to investigate the use of engineered probiotics for treating a common side effect of cancer immunotherapy, colitis. “We want to use the tools of synthetic biology to engineer what can be found in nature,” said Quintana. “By engineering probiotics, our goal is to create more personalized, localized and highly controlled medications for treating diseases of the gut and beyond.” To read the original article click here.

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6 Signs That Your Gut Health Is in Jeopardy, Especially in Kids

AHA Publisher — Fri, 15 Jan 2021 08:00:58 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – The human gut famously called the “forgotten organ,” is becoming increasingly less forgotten as scientists discover more and more just how pivotal gut health is to human well-being. But while gut bacteria research tends to focus on adults, it’s clear that gut health has a major impact on children, as well. More recently, a team of researchers from Duke University determined that the bacteria living inside a child’s digestive tract (known collectively as the microbiome) may help indicate the type of exposure that child has had to environmental toxins … an issue that could pave the way to long-term health ramifications. NEW Study Reveals the Damaging Effect of Toxic Chemicals on Children’s Gut Health Published in the November 2020 edition of Environmental Science & Technology, the Duke-based study analyzed blood and urine samples from 80 children between the ages of three and six. Researchers found 29 volatile organic compounds (VOCs)(common environmental toxins emitted from things like building materials, carpets, and upholstery) in nearly all (95 percent) of the samples. Notably, the researchers found that children with high levels of VOCs also had altered levels of certain bacterial and fungal species in their gut. This included the growth of some bacteria not usually found in the digestive tract. The findings suggest that the increased toxin load in these children could be driving unhealthy changes in the microbiome, undermining children’s gut health, although more research is needed to clarify the mechanisms of this relationship. Such changes, the researchers hypothesize, could be linked to negative long-term health outcomes. What kind of outcomes, you might ask? Is Your Kid’s Gut Healthy? Here Are 6 Signs to Look Out For Even if you can’t see inside your child’s gut, you still can look for clues that he or she may be suffering from poor gut health and an altered microbiome. Here are a few common signs and symptoms which may point to a gut-related issue: Skin rashes Digestive problems like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and upset stomach Sugar cravings Unexplained fatigue Unexplained fluctuations in weight Frequent illnesses To be clear, the potential health impact of a dysfunctional microbiome goes well beyond uncomfortable signs and symptoms. Poor gut health has also been linked to vitamin deficiencies, behavioral problems, autoimmune conditions like type 1 diabetes (also called “juvenile diabetes” as it is typically diagnosed in childhood), asthma, and atopic dermatitis. Poor gut health has even been implicated in the development of autism spectrum disorder, according to research shared by Nature. In a January 2020 article, the peer-reviewed scientific journal noted that studies show “children with [autism spectrum disorder] often have a mix of gut microbes that is distinct from that in children without the condition,” and that altered gut bacteria (e.g., not enough good bacteria and/or too many bad bacteria) may lead to issues with social development and brain function. Research on the autism/gut health link is on-going, and there’s still so much to be learned. But in the meantime, let this be a call to all parents to minimize their children’s exposure to VOCs and other environmental toxins. Sources for this article include: EurekAlert.org, NIH.gov, NIH.gov, Nature.com, ACS.org, Childrens.com, Piedmont.org, MBio.asm.org, Nature.com, MedicalNewsToday.com To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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Engineered Yeast Probiotic Developed to Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease

6 Signs That Your Gut Health Is in Jeopardy, Especially in Kids