Biologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a genetically modified version of a common bacteria found in the gut that can sense the environment there and fight disease. And when this designer bacteria works, the proof is in the poop — glowing poop. (In this case, mouse poop.)
We wanted to equip this bacteria with the ability to do new things, like turn on the production of therapeutic molecules or sense disease inside guts, said Timothy Lu, a biologist and senior author on the study. The designer bacteria is modeled after a common gut bacteria called Bacteroides Thetaiotaomicron that is already highly abundant in the human gut, meaning this designer bacteria could play an important role in drug treatment.
But to monitor whether it was working, Lu’s team had to see the results first. To do that, they used a technique called bacterial conjugation to insert a gene called luciferase that codes for fluorescence into the gut bacteria’s genome.
Researchers wired the bacteria to switch on when mice chowed down on a plant-based edible starch called arabinogalactan. Mice fed arabinogalactan had a 75-fold increase in luciferase in their stool. And the more starch the mice were fed, the more the gene turned on, Lu said.
Lu’s team also created an off-switch for the bacteria’s glow using CRISPR, a genetic technology that edits DNA. The end result of the current study, published July 9 in the journal Cell Systems, was that mice with the designer bacteria produced fluorescent poop. Scientists hope this research could eventually help humans with gut diseases like colon cancer or Crohn’s disease.
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