Credit: Martha Sexton/public domain
A team with University of California has found that introducing a type of antimicrobial protein called a microcin into the guts of mice with inflamed bowels caused a reduction in the degree of inflammation. The team describes their study of the use of the protein in mice and their evidence that microcins intercede in the relationship between different types of bacteria in the gut.
Over the past several decades, scientists have made a lot of progress in better understanding the factors that lead to irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, which covers a host of gut ailments, from Crohn’s disease to colitis. Most of them, they believe, are due to harmful gut bacteria multiplying and pushing out beneficial bacteria. In this new effort, the team of researchers was studying microcins, which are secreted by probiotic bacteria and serve as a means for striking back when pushed by harmful bacteria. They conducted a study to determine if introducing the protein into the guts of mice with IBS would have a positive impact—prior work in the lab had suggested it might.
In the study, they caused several mice to have IBS, then separated them into groups—some received doses of a type of E. coli that produces microcin, another group received another strain of E. coli that does, while a third group got a dose of diarrhea-producing Salmonella enterica and a fourth got a dose of E. coli that is suspected to play a role in causing Crohn’s disease in humans.
After waiting to see what might happen, the team found that the E. coli with the probiotic reproduced rapidly enough to push out the harmful bacteria that was causing the IBS in the mice—that in turn led to a reduction in inflammation. The team also found that the antimicrobial also caused a reduction in S. enterica numbers in infected mice.
The researchers suggest that introducing microcin-producing bacteria to the gut of people suffering from IBS might someday be a realistic treatment for those afflicted, noting that such therapies could offer a way forward in overcoming problems associated with antibiotic resistance. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-11-antimicrobial-calm-inflamed-gut-mice.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaap/ncurrent/full/nature20557.html
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