Antibiotics May Cause Irreversible Damage to Crucial Gut Bacteria – But This Could Help Repair Your Gut, According to a New Study.

A new study unveils a revolutionary treatment that effectively nurtures beneficial gut bacteria while simultaneously eliminating harmful ones.

A recent study highlights a remarkable breakthrough in the field of gut health by revealing an innovative treatment approach.

Probiotics, known for their ability to restore the balance of beneficial gut bacteria, can now be utilized as a potent therapeutic strategy for specific intestinal disorders, including Crohn’s disease.

Researchers, as reported in ACS Central Science, have successfully developed a microgel delivery system that safeguards “good” bacteria while actively eliminating the “bad” ones. In mouse experiments, this system effectively treated intestinal inflammation without any adverse effects.

The human digestive system relies on a delicate equilibrium of bacterial populations. Disruptions to this balance can lead to the dominance of harmful bacteria in the colon, resulting in colitis—a condition characterized by inflammation and swelling.

Current treatments for chronic colitis, such as inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn’s disease, often involve immunosuppressant drugs that are costly and non-specific, occasionally leading to the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

An alternative approach is to introduce beneficial bacteria, or probiotics, to restore the microbial balance. However, for a treatment to reach the colon, it must overcome challenges such as stomach acid, intestinal clearance, and competition with other invading bacteria.

Combining probiotics with a specialized drug delivery system could make this strategy viable. Although existing methods primarily focus on protecting probiotics from digestion, they fail to address the root cause of the condition—the harmful microbes.

Therefore, researchers Zhenzhong Zhang, Junjie Liu, Jinjin Shi, and their team aimed to combine probiotics with microgel spheres designed to protect the beneficial bacteria and actively combat the harmful ones.

They created their delivery system by combining sodium alginate, tungsten, and calcium-containing nanoparticles into small spherical microgels. These microgels were then coated with probiotic bacteria. By using this approach, the gels shielded the bacteria during their journey through the stomach and increased their retention time in the colon.

Once in the colon, the microgels reacted with calprotectin proteins, which are highly expressed during colitis. This interaction led to the disassembly of the gels, enabling the release of tungsten. The tungsten, by displacing molybdenum in a crucial enzyme substrate of the harmful bacterium Enterobacteriaceae, effectively inhibited its growth while leaving the probiotics unharmed.

In experiments conducted on mice with a colitis model, the delivery system allowed probiotics to thrive in the intestine without any negative side effects. Moreover, the mice with the microgel spheres did not exhibit several colitis indicators, such as shortened colons or compromised intestinal barriers.

This encouraging outcome demonstrates the potential of the delivery system as an effective treatment strategy. While further testing in advanced preclinical models is necessary, the researchers believe that this study offers a fresh perspective on probiotic-based treatments for colon-related disorders.

Source: 10.1021/acscentsci.3c00227

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