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Light flips genetic switch in bacteria inside transparent worms
HOUSTON - (Dec. 22, 2020) - Baylor College of Medicine researcher Meng Wang had already shown that bacteria that make a metabolite called colanic acid (CA) could extend the lifespan of worms in her lab by as much as 50%, but her collaboration with Rice University synthetic biologist Jeffrey Tabor is providing tools to answer the bigger question of how the metabolite imparts longer life.
In a study published in eLife, Wang, Tabor and colleagues showed they could use different colors of light to turn gut bacteria genes on and off while the bacteria were in the intestines of worms. The work was made possible by an optogenetic control system Tabor has been developing for more than a decade.
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Research has shown that gut microbes can influence several aspects of the host s life, including aging. Given the complexity and heterogeneity of the human gut environment, elucidating how a specific microbial species contributes to longevity has been challenging. To explore the influence of bacterial products on the aging process, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University developed a method that uses light to directly control gene expression and metabolite production from bacteria residing in the gut of the laboratory worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
They report in the journal
eLife that green-light-induced production of colanic acid by resident E. coli bacteria protected gut cells against stress-induced cellular damage and extended the worm s lifespan. The researchers indicate that this method can be applied to study other bacteria and propose that it also might provide in the future a new way to fine-tune bacterial metabolism in the host gut to deliver