Bacteria as Living Factories for the Production of Powerful Antibiotics

Antibiotics production will now be powered by bacteria in form of factories

Antibiotics are in use for ages to kill the bacteria as it name ideally suggests. Our world is filled with antibiotics which we can see or perceive but they are still here. From the soil which we walk upon to the daily use surfaces almost everywhere we can find both bacteria and antibiotic thriving against each other.

It is worth noting down that the microbes present in nature itself contain small amount of bacteria killing compounds which helps in safeguarding themselves against other microbes as well. Over the years we had been successful in treating various ailments by producing artificial antibiotics to counter the sudden rise of influence of the bacteria in the human body.

Bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics

But so far we had been unsuccessful in our attempt to produce antibiotics which can be easily found in the nature. The major challenge behind it has been the reason that the organism which results in the production of the antibiotic in the nature doesn't do the same in the lab conditions.

It has been found that many of the antibiotics use in today are increasingly becoming ineffective as bacteria are becoming resistant to a large number of widely used families of antibiotics and it is a major concern both for the scientists and doctors alike.

New research set to bring first

A team of researchers at TU Delft has been successful in engineering bacteria in order to produce the promising amount of simple carbapenem antibiotic. This antibiotic is incredibly effective against a wider range of common bacteria and its success rate is quite high when compared with other antibiotics.

The production of the carbapenem antibiotic is trickier process and happens to be expensive apart from resulting in a considerable amount of chemical waste. This research has given insight that in the upcoming scientists will be able to produce the antibiotics biologically through using bacteria s "living factories".

Biological production of antibiotics is here

If production of the carbapenems in the synthetic form is conducted on a wide scale then it will lead to the environmental pollution due to the release of the chemical waste as a by-product. This became a major challenge for the researchers at the Delft and they came up with a new innovative counter solution.

They became successful in engineering a variant of E. coli bacteria which allowed them to produce the carbapenems antibiotic from it. They had effectively borrowed some of the genes from another bacterium and inserted the same in the E Coli and it helped in beginning the biological production of the carbapenems antibiotic. In order to boost the production process researchers had added two additional steps.

The success conjured by the Delft researchers has left everyone shocked but it has opened a world of new opportunities for the scientists globally. They had been successful in producing 54 milligrams worth of carbapenem antibiotics using the engineered E.Coli for every litre. These numbers are good and the quantities being produced from it is well within the acceptable mass production capability limits.