MICROORGANISMS ARE THE BEST CHEMISTS IN THE WORLD

               MICROORGANISMS ARE THE BEST CHEMISTS IN THE WORLD

Michael A. Fischbach, a chemist at the University of California, with all the accumulated knowledge years in the lab says "Microorganisms are the best chemists in the world".

Microorganisms produce many drugs that can save lives. One of the most enlightening and known examples is the discovery of penicillin, produced by fungi that developed in the laboratory of Alexander Fleming spontaneously when he was on vacation.

For years scientists have explored many distant and exotic places looking for microbes that manufacture medicines. But it may not be necessary to go that far: maybe a good source of material is within ourselves.

Analyzing the bacteria that live in our bodies, scientists identified genes that could make over 3000 new molecules that are potential drugs.

Find these small molecules, known as natural products, has been a slow and expensive work. Microbes produce these natural products in trace amounts and also do not use a single gene for it. In return, the microbes use dozens of different proteins produced by genes, to join this small natural product. A kind of meticulous craftsmanship.

Fishbach and his colleagues decided to accelerate the process by using a computer program that learned to recognize the genes used to make these natural products. They found that genes are very similar to each other and tend to cluster. But if they are combined in various ways, produce an astonishing number of new molecules.

To test the program Fishbach and colleagues he was charged with 732 groups of genes already known to make natural products. As the program examined groups showed different patterns. The next step was to use the program to study the microbes that live inside the human body.

The Human Microbiome Project provided them with genetic material from his vast library, which has collected microbial DNA from five body parts in 242 healthy volunteers. Based on this material, they could sequence the entire genome of 2340 microbial species, many of them new to science.

To show the potential value for medicine of these new products, Fisherbach and colleagues chose a simple group to study it closely: a bacteria called Lactobacillus gasseri. It extracted the lactocillina. When they exposed several species of bacteria to the lactocillina, bacteria died, suggesting its antibiotic capacity.

But a moment, our own potential bacteria producing antibiotics? And if so, why not kill themselves?

Fishbach suspected that bacteria use the antibiotics once rare and against its competitors. This can be seen as a way to protect the boundaries of their own colony. Hundreds of thousands of microbes living in the body * must have developed sophisticated and effective systems to survive.

Shaun Lee, a microbiologist at the University of Notre Dame and who was not involved in the study says: "The human body is the Manhattan of microbial life. A great place to live, full of resources and possibilities, but rents are very high. "

Many natural products produced by the antibiotic may not be microbioma. Previous studies indicate that some act as signals between microbes or  in relation to its human host.

And they could also become very useful drug, which would open up a whole new field of research and development of new drugs, less harmful, more natural in a good way.

The microbes are adapted to live within us for millions of years.
Surely, without even knowing they are doing microscopic doctors in our body and very secure because every day throwing these natural products without causing any apparent damage.

A privileged group of molecules," says Fishbach.

@RdzgCarlos  

With a Licence Creative Commons 4 International