B. thuringiensis Toxin Cry5B in an Antihelminthic Probiotic

摘要

Most probiotic treatments consist of ingesting bacteria known to have commensal relationships with their human hosts but that have undergone little manipulation themselves. Lab head Todd Klaenhammer has a different idea. With first author Evelyn Durmaz, he and his team at North Carolina State University have engineered a strain of Lactococcus lactis to express a known toxin. The toxin, cry5B from Bacillus thuringiensis, is known to act against nematodes and has no known effects against human cells. The team hope to produce an probiotic that can be used to make antihelminthic treatments in underdeveloped countries. Their latest research in Applied and Environmental Microbiology demonstrates that several versions of the cry5B gene can be expressed in L. lactis, and that L. lactis lysates have antinematode activities.