What are ‘Eligobiotics’ ?
Eligobiotics are protein-based nanodelivery vectors that contain a synthetic circuit encoding for a programmable RNA-guided nuclease. Such system can ensures an extremely specific effect of eligobiotics against targeted bacteria while leaving the rest of the flora completely intact.
Applications
Therapeutics
Cosmetics
Biodefense
More…
Publications
Authors: David Bikard, Chad W Euler, Wenyan Jiang, Philip M Nussenzweig, Gregory W Goldberg, Xavier Duportet, Vincent A Fischetti & Luciano A Marraffini
Abstract: Antibiotics target conserved bacterial cellular pathways or growth functions and therefore cannot selectively kill specific members of a complex microbial population. Here, we develop programmable, sequence-specific antimicrobials using the RNA-guided nuclease Cas9 delivered by a bacteriophage. We show that Cas9, reprogrammed to target virulence genes, kills virulent, but not avirulent,Staphylococcus aureus. Reprogramming the nuclease to target antibiotic resistance genes destroys staphylococcal plasmids that harbor antibiotic resistance genes and immunizes avirulent staphylococci to prevent the spread of plasmid-borne resistance genes. We also show that CRISPR-Cas9 antimicrobials function in vivo to kill S. aureus in a mouse skin colonization model. This technology creates opportunities to manipulate complex bacterial populations in a sequence-specific manner.
Nature Biotechnology 32,1146–1150doi:10.1038/nbt.3043
Authors: Robert J Citorik, Mark Mimee & Timothy K Lu
Abstract: Current antibiotics tend to be broad spectrum, leading to indiscriminate killing of commensal bacteria and accelerated evolution of drug resistance. Here, we use CRISPR-Cas technology to create antimicrobials whose spectrum of activity is chosen by design. RNA-guided nucleases (RGNs) targeting specific DNA sequences are delivered efficiently to microbial populations using bacteriophage or bacteria carrying plasmids transmissible by conjugation. The DNA targets of RGNs can be undesirable genes or polymorphisms, including antibiotic resistance and virulence determinants in carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae and enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli. Delivery of RGNs significantly improves survival in a Galleria mellonella infection model. We also show that RGNs enable modulation of complex bacterial populations by selective knockdown of targeted strains based on genetic signatures. RGNs constitute a class of highly discriminatory, customizable antimicrobials that enact selective pressure at the DNA level to reduce the prevalence of undesired genes, minimize off-target effects and enable programmable remodeling of microbiota.
Nature Biotechnology 32,1141–1145doi:10.1038/nbt.3011
Authors: David Bikard, Wenyan Jiang, Poulami Samai, Ann hochschild, Feng Zhang & Luciano A Marraffini
Abstract: The ability to artificially control transcription is essential both to the study of gene function and to the construction of synthetic gene networks with desired properties. Cas9 is an RNA-guided double-stranded DNA nuclease that participates in the CRISPR-Cas immune defense against prokaryotic viruses. We describe the use of a Cas9 nuclease mutant that retains DNA-binding activity and can be engineered as a programmable transcription repressor by preventing the binding of the RNA polymerase (RNAP) to promoter sequences or as a transcription terminator by blocking the running RNAP. In addition, a fusion between the omega subunit of the RNAP and a Cas9 nuclease mutant directed to bind upstream promoter regions can achieve programmable transcription activation. The simple and efficient modulation of gene expression achieved by this technology is a useful asset for the study of gene networks and for the development of synthetic biology and biotechnological applications.
Nucl. Acids Res. (2013)doi: 10.1093/nar/gkt520