Researchers say the human microbiome - the collection of microorganisms that live inside us - contains over 3,000 clusters of bacterial genes that have enormous potential for drug discovery..
New scientific work published in the journal Cell shows that healthy vaginal microflora contains the secret to the synthesis of a new antibiotic that was not known to science - lactocillin (lactocillin).
The traditional view of antibiotics goes something like this: drug companies create new substances in the lab, then the federal government gives us permission to use them, and only then can we get them from a pharmacy on prescription..
But the world around us is rich in microscopic " And scientists hardly know at least 10% of their products. Each microorganism in the process of evolution creates its own means of protection against competing microbes.. Many of them we simply copied and modified a little, having received commercial antibiotics..
The human microbiome is one of the greatest biological discoveries of recent times.. Trillions of diverse microorganisms inhabit the human body. As this microbiome is studied, scientists are increasingly coming to the conclusion that it was not formed by chance, but was formed over a long time and now seriously affects many basic life processes within us..
Researchers have been studying it for a long time, but microbiologists were mainly interested in individual species that they isolated, grew on nutrient media, subjected to various influences, and analyzed their metabolic products.. Recent advances in DNA sequencing have shown us that the human microbiome is a highly complex and highly interconnected community that has lived with its host for millions of years.. And it must be considered as a whole.
Our microbiome is involved in many metabolic processes, from the absorption of food components to the synthesis of certain vitamins.. Human health depends on microflora. Interesting fact: scientists recently found that the secret of the development of autism can be hidden in the intestinal microflora.
Natural drug factory.
In their latest study, Californian scientists convincingly proved that the human microbiome is still a storehouse of natural medicinal substances, including antibiotics, which has not yet been studied by pharmacologists..
Study lead author Michael Fischbach, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy, says many diseases begin to develop after the human microbiome is " If scientists could find substances that help maintain the microflora of the body, then the risk of these diseases could be reduced..
Professor Fischbach, who specializes in the study of interesting molecules synthesized by microorganisms, says that about 1/3 of all drugs that we use today are products of microorganisms or plants.. These include the antibiotic penicillin, many cancer chemotherapy drugs, and even cholesterol-lowering drugs..
In their latest study, Fischbach and his colleagues obtained the pure substance lactocillin, an antibiotic produced by bacteria of the species Lactobacillus gasseri that inhabit the vagina.. Lactocillin has a lot in common with the latest antibiotics that pharmaceutical companies are now testing.. It kills many types of pathogenic organisms that often cause vaginitis. At the same time, lactocillin does not affect the “beneficial” bacteria, with which Lactobacillus gasseri has been living in the neighborhood for millions of years..
ClusterFinder reveals the secrets of the microbiome.
During their study, the scientists used a computer program called ClusterFinder, which identifies bacterial genes that can become sources of biologically active substances..
When they ran this program to analyze the genomes of all the species that make up the human microbiome, it identified 3,118 different bacterial gene clusters from different parts of the human body.. Each of these clusters can encode substances that will be of interest to pharmaceutical manufacturers.. Lactocillin is the first in the list of such substances.
medbe. en.