Researchers have modified E. coli to produce chondroitin sulfate, a complex sugar. He
Genetically modified Escherichia coliused in many medicines. However, it took scientists years to get bacteria to produce even the simplest of their class of bound sugar molecules, sulfated glycosaminoglycans. They are often used as medicines and nutraceuticals.
Develop E.coli to produce these molecules is not an easy task, and we had to make a lot of changes and balance them in order for the bacteria to grow well. But this work shows that it is possible to produce these polysaccharides using E. coli without the use of animals. In addition the procedure can be extended to produce other sulfated glycosaminoglycans.
Matteos Koffas, lead researcher and professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
The creation of E. coli for the production of a drug has many advantages over the current extraction process or even the chemoenzymatic process.
Scientists first created the structure of the enzyme, andthen used an algorithm to help identify the mutations they could make to the enzyme to create a stable version that would work with E. coli.
Although modified E. coli givesrelatively small yields—on the order of micrograms per liter—they thrive under normal laboratory conditions, providing a strong proof of concept.
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Glycosaminoglycans, mucopolysaccharides - carbohydratepart of proteoglycans, polysaccharides, which include amino sugar-hexosamines. In the body, glycosaminoglycans are covalently bound to the protein part of proteoglycans and are not found in free form.