Researchers Create Bacteria That Could Protect Your Gut From Antibiotics (engadget.com) 36
In a new study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers from Harvard and MIT detail work they've done on a "living cellular therapeutic device" that promises to protect humans from the harmful side effects antibiotics can have on our guts. Engadget reports: Per Science Daily, they modified a strain of bacteria that is frequently used in cheese production to deliver an enzyme that can break down beta-lactam antibiotics. Many of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics in the US, including penicillin, fall under that family. Using gene editing, they further modified how their bacterium synthesizes the enzyme to prevent it from transferring that capability to other bacteria. The result is a treatment that reduces the harmful effects of antibiotics while still allowing those drugs to do their work.
In a study involving mice, the researchers found their bacteria "significantly" reduced the damage ampicillin did to the test subject's gut microbes and allowed those communities to recover fully after just three days. By contrast, in mice that only received the antibiotic, the researchers saw a much greater loss of microbial diversity. "We are now focusing on getting these living therapies to patients and are finalizing the design of an effective, short, and inexpensive clinical trial," said Andres Cubillos-Ruiz, the lead author of the study.
In a study involving mice, the researchers found their bacteria "significantly" reduced the damage ampicillin did to the test subject's gut microbes and allowed those communities to recover fully after just three days. By contrast, in mice that only received the antibiotic, the researchers saw a much greater loss of microbial diversity. "We are now focusing on getting these living therapies to patients and are finalizing the design of an effective, short, and inexpensive clinical trial," said Andres Cubillos-Ruiz, the lead author of the study.
Do you want antibiotic resistant bacteria? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because that's how you get antibiotic resistant bacteria.
I read the bit about how they split it so the instructions are separated and unlikely to both be copied to another cell, but if there are multiple ways to get to the beneficial part of the process, it seems like this will increase the odds that it happens.
Re:Do you want antibiotic resistant bacteria? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.. it seems like they're basically engineering Antibiotic-resistant into bacteria. I would say the risks far outweigh the benefits, and this should be a non-starter. The possibility of reducing some side effects does not justify introducing the risk in order to do so, And there are likely many ways the loss of gut bacteria can be treated that don't cause the risk of making superbugs.
Im How could this possibly go wrong? Welp, bacteria reproduce and mutate.
There's no such thing as a 100% Harmless bacteria -- It might be not pathogenic normally, but there can be situations where harmless bacteria get somewhere they're not supposed to be and turn pathogenic and cause infection, possibly life-threatening if they contain engineered Antibiotic-resistance.
Now all you need is for that antibiotic-resistant strain to Invade someplace it's not supposed to and/or mutate or copy some genetic material from a harmful bacterium, And you've literally created a SuperBug.
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"Fecal Microbiota Transplants" (FMT's, sometimes called "transpoosions") are used to restore healthy gut microbiomes [bbc.com]. If scientists are capable of complex genetic modifications of various bacteria, I'd think they're also capable of growing and maintaining healthy gut microbiomes in vitro to transplant into patients as required.
I agree with others here that creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria - regardless of whatever safety measures are taken, is a VERY bad idea. There are less dangerous ways of accomplis
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a potentially distasteful patient-to-patient microbiota transplant
I think you're doing it wrong...
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There's no such thing as a 100% Harmless bacteria
You mean, aside from the massive colonies that do most of our digestion for us, which is why doctors are very interested in not wiping them out? They're not so much 100% "harmless" as 100% "helpful and necessary". It looks like the entire reason we have an appendix is to make sure that some of these bacteria survive to recolonize our guts in case of a disaster.
The approach that they're taking does seem a bit unnerving and may not be practical.
Re: Do you want antibiotic resistant bacteria? (Score:2)
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They're not so much 100% "harmless" as 100% "helpful and necessary".
They are not 100% Harmless. That "helpful" bacteria gets out of the gut and somewhere it's not supposed to be, and it can still cause infections or life-threatening sepsis with antibiotics basically the only shot at survival.
The colonies are only benign, helpful and necessary when the bacteria is in the right niche; a right place in the right amounts, doing the right things, and not producing toxins due to mutations, etc.
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Yes.. it seems like they're basically engineering Antibiotic-resistant into bacteria. I would say the risks far outweigh the benefits, and this should be a non-starter. The possibility of reducing some side effects does not justify introducing the risk in order to do so, And there are likely many ways the loss of gut bacteria can be treated that don't cause the risk of making superbugs.
Im How could this possibly go wrong? Welp, bacteria reproduce and mutate.
There's no such thing as a 100% Harmless bacteria -- It might be not pathogenic normally, but there can be situations where harmless bacteria get somewhere they're not supposed to be and turn pathogenic and cause infection, possibly life-threatening if they contain engineered Antibiotic-resistance.
Now all you need is for that antibiotic-resistant strain to Invade someplace it's not supposed to and/or mutate or copy some genetic material from a harmful bacterium, And you've literally created a SuperBug.
It's WAY worse than that. Horizontal gene transfer [wikipedia.org] between different species is damn common among bacteria, and it's only a question of "when" that gene gets transferred into something nasty, not "if".
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There are various bacteria without which you could not live, though, like all the many and varied species that live in your digestive system, where they digest your food for you.
This is utterly ridiculous. (Score:2)
Lab errors and disappearing scientists?
Simian immunodeficiency viruses passed on to humans through vaccine research?
Tyranny and Mutation?
Excuse me, I have to order more ammunition.
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What could wrong? (Score:3)
1. I don't see them signing up any insurance company willing to make any million to one bets it won't happen
2. Nothing has been said about other bacteria passing traits to the antibiotic resistant bacteria instead, making it a new super-bacteria culprit
Slashdot experts, Dunning Kruger certified (Score:5, Interesting)
There is absolutely NO increased danger of antibiotic-resistant bacteria from this. Zero. None. Contrary to what you fools think, bacteria have been resistant to beta-lactam antibiotics for millions of years. They don't need us to provide them with that technology. Where the heck do you think beta-lactamase comes from in the first place, you idiots! Humans didn't invent it. Some bacteria did! It's THEIR technology, not ours. The prevalence of bacteria with resistance genes increases in the presence of antibiotics. If these engineered bacteria do end up transferring these resistance genes horizontally .. it won't make a difference to the world none. I mean consider there are zillions of beta-lactamase producing bacteria already .. our increasing their number by a few trillion is not going to make any difference. I mean, wow, you've increased the antibiotic-resistant bacteria population by .000001% ! congratulations!
The biggest contributor to humans encountering antibiotic resistant bacteria is the over-use of antibiotics. That creates the environment for the antibiotic resistant bacteria to emerge .. not some BS of horizontal gene transfer of synthetic genes. There is a burden to any gene, if that gene is not needed the bacteria turns it off and throws it away.
Watch antibiotic resistance emerge -- no synthetic genes provided: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Slashdot experts, Dunning Kruger certified (Score:2)
No disagreement here, but if beta lactamase production capability is already present, like, everywhere, what's the value of this research? Is it just not common in the gut?
Also, I love that video, and wonder what exactly they did with the super mutants that survived all the way to the middle. [pulls out flamethrower].
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Antibiotic resistant bacteria are normally in a disadvantaged position in nature. Therefore, even today, most bacteria don't have (functional copies of) the resistance genes. Less that one in a million would have resistance capability. When you take an antibiotic, you kill off a majority of bacteria inside you and then your immune system kills off any antibiotic-resistant stragglers. But then, you don't actually want to kill all the bacteria. There are many beneficial and good bacteria living in your gut. N
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OK
Well, then . . .
I, for one, welcome our new naturally occurring bacterial overlords!
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If the side effects of taking antibiotics are reduced, then that's just going to increase their use, and end up leading to antibiotic resistance.
I think it's better that they are kept as a treatment of last choice - the nuke button against bacteria to be used when there aren't any other viable options - with the consequence that after you use them you have to eat probiotics etc to restore your good bacteria.
That way people can stick with just chugging vitamin C for their colds instead of antibiotics
Re: Slashdot experts, Dunning Kruger certified (Score:2)
No, if the side effects are reduced, clearance levels of antibiotics can be given. When you give a low dosage of the antibiotic, the resistance is more likely to evolve because it is less likely there are mutants that not only produce the anti-antibiotic but also in sufficient quantity. Refer to the video I posted in my comment. You can see that the bacteria needed the intermediate steps to evolve high resistance.
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Healthy right up until the point that they die from a simple infection.
Antibiotics may well be overused, over-prescribed and cause problems, but they do that because we save countless lives with them every day.
Just one set of stats says 200,000 US lives every day, and adding 5-10 years to your life expectancy.
Is this for real? (Score:2)
Seriously, guys... are you proposing to put beta-lactamase producing bacteria in the guts and expecting this to be harmless, that somehow the beta-lactamase gene won't be passed to some staphyllococcus or E. coli..? REALLY??
There are some extremely stupid things, and then, this. You can't make this stuff up.
Simpler solution (Score:5, Interesting)
The appendix is being used to store a master set of gut bacteria, which is used to repopulate the gut as needed. The appendix suffering infections is the main reason it gets removed. Ergo, the correct solution is to produce an idealised set of bacteria that can be injected directly into the appendix and a really powerful antibiotic that can also be injected directly into the appendix.
This would not constrain the gut, it could diversify or consolidate as always, but it would allow people with gut issues or appendix issues to request a hard reset to a recommended basic install as opposed to a factory reset. If there are no such issues, the appendix should restore everything quickly enough to the user's requirements.
So instead of producing hardened bacteria which could easily mutate into truly dangerous forms that could then not be removed (remember, alcohol is a mutagenic), essentially a locked-down system with zero-day exploits, you'd sacrifice some (but not all) of the enhanced gut response in exchange for a healthier microbiome.
This is simpler because we have some experience in microbiome transfers and can guarantee the payload can get through the stomach, the only research would be in being able to compose and mass produce a healthy microbiome rather than copy something that is approximately healthy. Genetic engineering, especially of antibiotic-resistant microbes, tends to be difficult to control and you've zero guarantees that anything you eat will get to the gut (which is why existing microbiome transfers aren't in that direction).
In short, we don't really understand what we're doing, but we have a rather better vague idea, it's merely a refinement of what is already done.
It's also a lot safer, even if you ignore the risk of a bad mutation, because we know bacteria can steal abilities from other bacteria. Anything you GE into one bacterium can be horizontally transferred and I'm afraid bacteria just don't give a damn about intellectual property rights. Most GE methods are based on bacteria cut-and-paste technologies.
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Read my comment above yours and also my replies to comments in it, and watch the video. There is no risk from giving bacteria antibiotic resistance genes because many bacteria already have this kind of resistance. It's like fretting over the sale of one pistol to China when they have a million already. The risk comes from the incorrect use of antibiotics, which enables resistant versions to dominate and infect others. Ironic you say "we don't really understand what we're doing" and then propose to do someth
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You have to select them to give immunity. If two progress have identical components, then you don't get to say yours is easier because GMO. That is not a reasoned argument and I do not accept unreasoned arguments.
I'll stick with known science, evidence-based medicine and the ability to test outcomes over something that isn't reliable, isn't evidence-based and isn't testable.
As for what isn't understood, stop reading selectively. You'll find your posting rate will drop but you post something based on what wa
What Happened to Yogurt? (Score:1)
Highly quality, Greek (style) Yogurt replaces bacteria killed by antibiotics.
Been recommended for centuries.
Works.
Can even be made at home.
Why do we need a drug for everything?
teaching bacteria to avoid antibiotics (Score:2)
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