Scientists propose “CRISPR pill” to kill drug-resistant bacteria
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US have proposed a novel strategy which involves the consumption of a “CRISPR pill” to fight and kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or“superbugs”.
CRISPR is an efficient gene-editing technology that is being studied as a tool to alter human genes to cure diseases. Jan-Peter Van Pijkeren, assistant professor of food science in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UW-Madison wants to use this technology to “specifically kill your bacteria of choice”.
Bacteria use CRISPR as a defense mechanism to protect themselves from viruses. They store pieces of viral DNA in their genome and use this memory together with a DNA-cutting enzyme to ward off future attacks.
Van Pijkeren plans to develop a virus carrying a CRISPR message that would guide the harmful bacteria to cut its own DNA and self-destruct. This virus would be packaged in gut-friendly bacteria that can protect the virus in hostile conditions of the stomach and deliver it to the intestine.
The team is hoping to target Clostridium difficile, which tops the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) list of drug-resistant threats. C.difficile is a risk to hospital patients and has been reported to be the cause of half a million infections and 15,000 death in the US.
Antibiotics often do a sweeping kill and destroy the friendly gut bacteria along with the invading pathogenic bugs, a drawback that this technology intends to overcome.
“The downside of antibiotics is they are a sledgehammer that depletes and destroys the gut microbial community,” says van Pijkeren. “You want to instead use a scalpel in order to specifically eradicate the microbe of interest.”
The technology is still in its early stages and studies in animal models are planned to test its efficacy.
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