Many diseases in the world are caused by bacteria, yet your own body also contains hundreds of different species of them-highly diversified but working together to help maintain your body's vital function and protect you from illnesses.
This knowledge is what drives a team of researchers to investigate if the body's own bacteria are capable of producing molecules that can be just as potent as the manufactured drugs in the market.
The University of California-San Francisco's team of researchers working for the Human Microbiome Project, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, searched for bacteria that can create molecules with similar structures of conventional drugs.
Using special software called ClusterFinder and its algorithm, the team led by assistant professor of the university Michael Fischbach then found more than 3,000 distinct clusters.
After finding them, they took the study, the results of which were later published in Cell, to another level by testing their effectiveness against other harmful bacteria. They isolated the microbiome called lactocillin from a vagina of a woman. This later proved capable of fighting two common bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, which is responsible for staph infection that affects the respiratory tract and skin. It can also cause toxic shock syndrome, among other diseases.
For Fischbach and the rest of the team, this discovery holds a lot of promise in health care. For many years, scientists are looking and harnessing bacteria that are found in the soil and the sea. With this study, they can now shift their attention to enhancing the bacteria in the body.
Moreover, by closely studying how these bacteria work and synthesize themselves, they may be able to properly identify compounds and generate a body-friendly drug that can increase metabolism or the immune system. The kinds of new drugs that can be produced from the microbiome are wide ranging, and they may treat common illnesses like asthma or life-threatening ones such as cancer.