sciencedaily : declared in Remembrance of things past: Bacterial memory of gut inflammation: Stable engineered bacteria that retain long-term memory of gut inflammation could be used as living diagnostics for chronic intestinal

Today bacteria from the normal microbiome are already being used in their modified or attenuated form in probiotics and cancer therapy. Through simple analysis of fecal matter, the synthetic circuit's memory state was confirmed to be on and its DNA unchanged and stable. In the tetrathionate sensor, the product of gene A blocks expression of gene B when tetrathionate is absent. This is particularly beneficial in chronic inflammatory diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that remain difficult to monitor non-invasively. By adding gene circuits that retain memory, we envision giving humans probiotics that record disease progression by a simple and non-invasive fecal test," said Riglar.

Mosquitoes infected with virus-suppressing bacteria could help control dengue fever: Strategic releases could transform mosquito populations and virus transmission across cities -- ScienceDaily

Mosquitos infected with the bacteria Wolbachia are significantly worse vectors for dengue virus, but how to establish and spread Wolbachia in an urban mosquito population is unclear. This suggests that local barriers to mosquito dispersal should be taken into account when determining how many releases of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are required. The researchers released adult Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria in three areas adjacent to suitable mosquito habitat in Cairns, Queensland. This suggests that as long as the introduction sites are large enough strategic releases can transform mosquito populations in cities. The researchers tracked the spread of Wolbachia through mosquito populations over two years by trapping and testing them for the bacteria.


Gut bacteria in mice have been genetically modified to make coloured pigments when they detect the presence of disease. David Riglar at Harvard Medical School, who worked on the project, hopes that the modified bacteria could help diagnose some of the many diseases that have been linked to gut bacteria, such as Parkinson's disease and autism. The modified bacteria have to be isolated from faeces and grown in the lab for a day before the blue colonies can be observed. Silver's team gave their modified bacteria to healthy mice and to mice that had gut inflammation, similar to that seen in ulcerative colitis. When the bacteria come across tetrathionate, they switch on a gene to make an enzyme, which is passed in faeces along with the bacteria.


collected by :Lucy William

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