Controlled human gut colonization by an engineered microbial therapeutic
Engineered gut bacteria designed to treat kidney stones successfully colonized the gut microbiome and reduced oxalate levels in animal models and early clinical trials in humans, researchers report. The findings offer a promising, yet still imperfect, step toward microbial therapies. Efforts to manipulate the gut microbiome using engineered bacteria for therapeutic purposes have shown promise in animals, but often fail in clinical settings due to being hindered by inconsistent colonization. To overcome this challenge, Weston Whitaker and colleagues focused on Phocaeicola vulgatus, a common gut bacterium, and engineered it to consume the seaweed-derived nutrient, porphyran. ...