Genetic engineering allows different species of bacteria to communicate with each other in the gut of a living mouse, setting the stage for a synthetic microbiome. More than 1,000 species of bacteria have been identified in the human gut, and understanding this incredibly diverse “microbiome” that can greatly impact health and disease is a hot topic in scientific research. Because bacteria are routinely genetically engineered in science labs, there is great excitement about the possibility of tweaking the genes of our intestinal interlopers so that they can do more than just help digest our food (e.g., record information about the state of the gut in real-time, report the presence of disease, etc.). However, little is known about how all those different strains communicate with each other, and whether it is even possible to create the kinds of signaling pathways that would allow information to be passed between them. Now, researchers from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School (HMS), and Brigham and Women’s Hospital have successfully engineered a genetic signal-transmission system in which a molecular signal sent by Salmonella Typhimurium bacteria in response to an environmental cue can be received and recorded by E. coli in the gut of a mouse, bringing scientists a step closer to developing a “synthetic microbiome” composed of bacteria that are programmed to perform specific functions. The study is reported in ACS Synthetic Biology. “In order to improve human health through engineered gut bacteria, we need to start figuring out how to make the bacteria communicate,” said Suhyun Kim, a graduate student in the lab of Pamela Silver at the Wyss Institute and HMS, who is the first author of the paper. “We want to make sure that, as engineered probiotics develop, we have a means to coordinate and control them in harmony.” https://www.technologynetworks.com/diagnostics/news/a-telephone-for-your-microbiome-308428?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=65636534&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_1iQgpchQe3XJ2zl0Jxc7uF7QM4oixZWQrmrDE2fXhsLGJBG0nW6t9oBOQh0m2zm7JYB4gNY_FXXxk3eQKPjOfwOW9_A&_hsmi=65636534