Famed American geneticist George Church’s lab at Harvard University has developed yet another engineered strain of Escherichia coli that is resistant to all virus infections, demonstrating a technological advancement in the field of synthetic biology.
The study was published in the journal Nature in March, in which researchers showcased their work on developing the virus-resistant bacteria in the lab. While a timeline for the commercial application of this technology is not known, the development is significant nonetheless.
Rewriting our genetic code is a sophisticated mechanism used by researchers to offer protection against various health conditions and improve one’s immune responses.
Our genetic material consists of 64 codons that act as machinery inside living cells. They are required to produce proteins, which are the building blocks of an organism.
The researchers from the Church Lab genetically reprogrammed the bacterial cells by removing three codons to provide the bacteria protection against viral infections.
In cases where the virus invaded the bacterial cell wall with its own genetic material (protein building machinery), the bacterial codons were genetically manipulated even further.
The researchers did this by replacing the codon machinery that synthesised the amino acid serine with leucine. As such, even when the virus particles entered the bacterial cell with their own machinery, they could not survive and infect them.
This was the first time that codons had been programmed to provide resistance against viral infections.
Most antibiotics and commercially available medicines and compounds—including insulin—are produced using genetically engineered bacterial species.
Also read
How bacteria could turn the tide against cancer
Cyborg cells show potential in cancer therapy
A major challenge industries face is viral contamination during production processes leading to drastic increase in scale-up and final product costs.
“Contamination in production facilities is an issue seen by many companies. Our lab is trying to explore these technologies so as to decipher ways to ‘How to grow almost anything,” George Church, professor at Harvard and author of the study tells Happiest Health.
The new bacterial strain could be used for environmental remediation studies apart from the production of high value compounds.
The new gene modification process developed can be extended to reprogramme other microbial strains, and plant, animal, and human cells.
Researchers hope that the development of such virus-resistant microbial strains using this technology could bring down the production costs of high value compounds given that the work required on the final product is reduced.
