Engineered gut bacteria

Abstract

A VANISH genetically engineered bacterium, a method of making the VANISH genetically engineered bacterium, and pharmaceutical compositions comprising the VANISH genetically engineered bacterium are disclosed. The VANISH genetically engineered bacterium comprises an engineered nucleic acid which comprises a non-native copy of an operon. The operon encodes a betaine transport/import system. In some embodiments, the operon is endogenous to the genome of a bacterial species from the Bacteroidaceae family. In some embodiments, the operon comprises an opuA operon comprising the genes opuAA, opuAB and opuAC which encode an ATPase, a transmembrane protein channel and a periplasmic substrate-binding protein. The VANISH genetically engineered bacterium may be introduced into a mammalian gut to reintroduce gut microbes that are vanishing in industrialized mammalian populations. Introduction of such VANISH genetically engineered bacterium may advantageously provide protection against osmotic stress or other stress response genes to enhance survival in an industrialized mammalian gut.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.