Bioengineered Probiotic Could Prevent Listeria Infections

Celiac.com 08/25/2021 - For people who are old, pregnant, or suffering from compromised immune systems, listeriosis is a serious food-borne illness that is fatal for about 20 percent of patients, even with antibiotic treatment.

Now, Purdue University’s Arun Bhunia, a professor of food science, and postdoctoral researcher Rishi Drolia have created a new probiotic that could prevent infections in high-risk patients, and help make potentially deadly listeria infections a thing of the past.

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Their technology uses a bioengineered version of Lactobacillus, a bacterium common in the human gut, to block the pathway the Listeria monocytogenes bacteria use to cross intestinal wall cells into the bloodstream. Their special Lactobacillus bacteria "seeks out the same proteins as Listeria monocytogenes in the gut," says Bhunia, before attaching, and blocking the pathway for Listeria.

According to Bhunia, “This could be included in probiotic yogurts, capsules or gummies and used as a preventive measure to treat people who are at high risk of infection.”

When the team's special Lactobacillus probiotic was introduced to human gut cells and in mice, it easily colonized the intestine and attached to epithelial cells. Pathogenic Listeria was subsequently unable to attach to those gut cells and reach the bloodstream. This prevented infection in these patients.

This study provides the first successful use of engineered probiotic strains to outcompete and reduce pathogen growth by binding to the receptor adhesion sites.

The team's approach provides a pathway for the use of bioengineered probiotic bacteria to potentially treat numerous conditions, including other gut illnesses such as celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease, without raising serious health or regulatory concerns, say the authors.

“We’ve seen evidence that the same proteins Listeria adheres to are overactive in these other illnesses,” Drolia said. “The probiotic has an anti-inflammatory effect and colonizes the gut for a week or more at a time. We’re interested in seeing how this could improve the lives of patients suffering from a variety of gut-related illnesses.”

Bhunia has filed for a patent on the bioengineered Lactobacillus probiotic and foresees licensing the technology. Successful engineering of bacteria could see the technology expanded to fight other food-borne illnesses. The team is interested in applying this model to other pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli or Salmonella

Read more in the Monticello Herald Journal