Helping 'good' gut bacteria and clearing out the 'bad' -- all in one
treatment

Date:
June 21, 2023
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Probiotics can help maintain a healthy gut microbiome or
restore populations of 'good bacteria' after a heavy course of
antibiotics. But now, they could also be used as an effective
treatment strategy for certain intestinal diseases, such as Crohn's
disease. Researchers have developed a microgel delivery system
for probiotics that keeps 'good' bacteria safe while actively
clearing out 'bad' ones. In mice, the system treated intestinal
inflammation without side effects.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Probiotics can help maintain a healthy gut microbiome or restore
populations of "good bacteria" after a heavy course of antibiotics. But
now, they could also be used as an effective treatment strategy for
certain intestinal diseases, such as Crohn's disease. Researchers
reporting in ACS Central Science have developed a microgel delivery system
for probiotics that keeps "good" bacteria safe while actively clearing out "bad" ones. In mice, the system treated intestinal inflammation without
side effects.

In the digestive system, there's a delicate balance of bacterial
populations.

When this balance is disrupted, bad bacteria can take over the colon,
causing it to swell, resulting in colitis. Certain diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease, involve chronic colitis
and currently require immunosuppressants to treat them. These drugs are expensive and non- specific, sometimes giving rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

An alternative strategy is to deliver beneficial bacteria, or probiotics,
to help restore balance. But to reach the colon, a treatment must first
pass through stomach acid, withstand being cleared out by the intestine,
then fight for space alongside the numerous invading bacteria. Pairing probiotics with a drug delivery system could make this strategy
feasible, though most current approaches simply protect the probiotics
from digestion without affecting the microbes responsible for the
condition. So, Zhenzhong Zhang, Junjie Liu, Jinjin Shi and colleagues
wanted to combine probiotics with specialized microgel spheres that
could not only protect the good bacteria, but also actively help clear
out the bad.

To create their system, the researchers combined sodium alginate, tungsten
and calcium-containing nanoparticles into small, spherical microgels,
then coated them with beneficial, probiotic bacteria. The gels protected
the bacteria as they made their way through the stomach and increased
their retention time in the colon. Once there, calprotectin proteins --
highly expressed during colitis -- bound to the calcium and disassembled
the gels, allowing the tungsten to escape. By displacing molybdenum in
a key enzyme substrate of the bad bacterium Enterobacteriaceae, tungsten inhibited the microbe's growth while leaving the probiotics unaffected. In experiments using a colitis mouse model, the system allowed probiotics
to proliferate in the intestine without any side effects.

Additionally, mice with the microgel spheres did not exhibit many of
the hallmarks of colitis, such as shortened colons or damaged intestinal barriers, showing that the delivery system could be a viable treatment strategy. Though the researchers also want to prove its utility in more advanced preclinical models, they say that this work provides a new
perspective into treatments using colonizing probiotics.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science
Foundation of China, the Outstanding Youth Foundation of Henan Province
and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Gastrointestinal_Problems # Colitis # Crohn's_Disease
# Pharmacology
o Matter_&_Energy
# Solar_Energy # Nanotechnology # Robotics_Research #
Ultrasound
* RELATED_TERMS
o South_Beach_diet o Parasympathetic_nervous_system o
Escherichia_coli o Flatulence o Healthy_diet o Pathogen o
Pneumonia o Bacteria

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Chemical_Society. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Jiali Yang, Mengyun Peng, Shaochong Tan, Shengchan Ge, Li Xie,
Tonghai
Zhou, Wei Liu, Kaixiang Zhang, Zhenzhong Zhang, Junjie Liu,
Jinjin Shi.

Calcium Tungstate Microgel Enhances the Delivery and
Colonization of Probiotics during Colitis via Intestinal
Ecological Niche Occupancy. ACS Central Science, 2023; DOI:
10.1021/acscentsci.3c00227 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230621105419.htm

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