I don’t know about you, but my tv is routinely :infected with advertisements about drugs (Entyvio comes to mind) that treat inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Chronic intestinal inflammation, which is what IBD is, includes the ailments of abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloody stool- basically, the inflammation of tissues that comprise the bowel tract. It is of two varieties- ulcerative colitis (the lining of the colon and the rectum) and Crohn’s Disease (deeper layers of the digestive tract, typically the small intestine).
It turns out that the lab tests that can monitor IBD (these area based upon ELIZA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) require specialized equipment, which means the samples are normally sent out, with a week or two delay before results are known. This is why Dr. Arthur Prindle (ChemE, Northwestern), along with his Northwestern compatriots- Drs. JY Xia, C Hepler, P Tran, NJ Waldeck, and J Bass, sought a noninvasive, rapid method to detect the debilitating disease. (Test results from this process are available within an hour.) They reported their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
They chose to examine beneficial bacteria (aka probiotics), which they modified by exposure to calprotectin (this protein binds to zinc and manganese). Moreover, calprotectin levels spike when the patient nmnaifests an active case of IBD. The microbe they chose was E coli Nissle 1917, which they engineered to sense the calprotectin levels. They found there were at least five active genes, all involved with zinc regulation within the cell; these were then linked to a fluorescent reporter protein; this meant the cell would light up. (Like we talked about last Thursday with the bacteriophage that lit up when E coli was present.) In particular, this gene helped the cell build ribosomes, even at low levels of zinc.
The initial testing was done in mice and on stool samples from 11 folks who manifested Crohn’s Disease (6 in active flare, 5 in remission), as well as five folks with no such symptoms. Only those with no disease or in remission did not cause the cells to fluoresce.
Right now, we don’t know if this test can be scaled up, so there is no idea of the economics of the system. But, the researchers are certain they can simplify the system.
We shall hope!
This may be great news for those who suffer from IBD!
One can only hope, Kate!
How interesting. In that case patients would like to stay in the dark, so to speak.
Commercials for (prescription) meds are not allowed on Swiss TV.
Great to see you back – good luck with the UBC!
That’s cool- no adverts for medicines. What a welcome relief that would be here.
So excited to see you back in the challenge Roy! You always have such interesting posts. I don’t have IBD but just finishing up with diverticulitis….not fun.. On another note, I hope you are fully recovered and back getting around easily.
Diverticulits… Yecho becho. Glad you are recovering.
I will hope so, also. It’s a nasty disease (I know someone who has Crohn’s).
Let’s hope this concept works it way through the system.