• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Microbiology

Microbes Can Make Anti-Obesity Molecule

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
March 24, 2015
in Microbiology
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Microbes may just be the next diet craze. Researchers have programmed bacteria to generate a molecule that, through normal metabolism, becomes a hunger-suppressing lipid. Mice that drank water laced with the programmed bacteria ate less, had lower body fat and staved off diabetes — even when fed a high-fat diet — offering a potential weight-loss strategy for humans.

The team will describe their approach in one of nearly 11,000 presentations at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society, taking place here through Thursday.

Sean Davies

Photo credit: Joe Howell

Obesity strongly increases the risk for developing several diseases and conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer. One in three Americans is obese, and efforts to stem the epidemic have largely failed. Lifestyle changes and medication typically achieve only modest weight loss, and most people regain the weight. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that the population of microbes living in the gut may be a key factor in determining the risk for obesity and related diseases, suggesting that strategically altering the gut microbiome may impact human health.

One advantage to microbial medicine would be that it’s low maintenance, says Sean Davies, Ph.D. His goal is to produce therapeutic bacteria that live in the gut for six months or a year, providing sustained drug delivery. This is in contrast to weight-loss drugs that typically need to be taken at least daily, and people tend not to take their medications as directed over time. “So we need strategies that deliver the drug without requiring the patient to remember to take their pills every few hours,” Davies says.

For a therapeutic molecule, Davies and colleagues at Vanderbilt University selected N-acyl-phosphatidylethanolamines (NAPEs), which are produced in the small intestine after a meal and are quickly converted into N-acyl-ethanolamines (NAEs), potent appetite-suppressing lipids. The researchers altered the genes of a strain of probiotic bacteria so it would make NAPEs. Then they added the bacteria to the drinking water of a strain of mice that, fed a high-fat diet, develop obesity, signs of diabetes and fatty livers.

Compared to mice who received plain water or water containing control, non-programmed bacteria, the mice drinking the NAPE-making bacteria gained 15 percent less weight over the eight weeks of treatment. In addition, their livers and glucose metabolism were better than in the control mice. The mice that received the therapeutic bacteria remained lighter and leaner than control mice for up to 12 weeks after treatment ended.

In further experiments, Davies’ team found that mice that lacked the enzyme to make NAEs from NAPEs were not helped by the NAPE-making bacteria; but this could be overcome by giving the mice NAE-making bacteria instead. “This suggests that it might be best to use NAE-making bacteria in eventual clinical trials,” says Davies, especially if the researchers find that some people don’t make very much of the enzyme that converts NAPEs to NAEs. “We think that this would work very well in humans.”

The main obstacle to starting human trials is the potential risk that a treated person could transmit these special bacteria to another by fecal exposure. “We don’t want individuals to be unintentionally treated without their knowledge,” says Davies. “Especially because you could imagine that there might be some individuals, say the very young or old or those with specific diseases, who could be harmed by being exposed to an appetite-suppressing bacteria. So, we are working on genetically modifying the bacteria to significantly reduce its ability to be transmitted.”

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

IMAGE

Cataloging nature’s hidden arsenal: Viruses that infect bacteria

December 10, 2020
IMAGE

The use of wild mammals in traditional medicine

December 9, 2020

Scientists shed new light on how lung bacteria defend against pneumonia

December 8, 2020

How poor oral hygiene may result in metabolic syndrome

December 8, 2020
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Needlestick Injury Rates in Nurses and Students in Pakistan

    296 shares
    Share 118 Tweet 74
  • Breakthrough in Computer Hardware Advances Solves Complex Optimization Challenges

    154 shares
    Share 62 Tweet 39
  • Molecules in Focus: Capturing the Timeless Dance of Particles

    143 shares
    Share 57 Tweet 36
  • New Drug Formulation Transforms Intravenous Treatments into Rapid Injections

    117 shares
    Share 47 Tweet 29

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Revolutionizing Art Education with Multimodal Deep Learning

KIF13B Protein Regulates Liver Metabolism, Combats Fatty Liver

Transforming Date Palm Waste into Probiotic Yogurt Enhancements

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.