E-Mail
Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
TROY, N.Y. Envisioning an animal-free drug supply, scientists have for the first time reprogrammed a common bacterium to make a designer polysaccharide molecule used in pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals. Published today in
Nature Communications, the researchers modified E. coli to produce chondroitin sulfate, a drug best known as a dietary supplement to treat arthritis that is currently sourced from cow trachea.
Genetically engineered E. coli is used to make a long list of medicinal proteins, but it took years to coax the bacteria into producing even the simplest in this class of linked sugar molecules called sulfated glycosaminoglycans that are often used as drugs and nutraceuticals..