Probiotics

What is a probiotic?

Probiotic has been very important throughout human history. It has extensively been used for fermentation and food preservation and represents an ancient and very primitive form of biotechnology. They are also essential for our digestive health, they synthesize important nutrients and keep pathogenic bacteria in check. Studies have shown that probiotic play an important role in immunology and digestive functions and have effect in alleviating infectious diseases, diarrhea and some other illnesses. Today there are a lot of probiotic products on the market that are eaten for their health benefits.

Why work with lactobacillus?

Lactic acid bacteria are the biggest group of probiotic bacteria out of which many are a part of the Lactobacillus genus. Their long and extensive use as probiotics means they have been proven safe to eat and make them suitable as a new probiotic chassi. Lactobacillus also have several other interesting properties.

Lactobacillus is a gram-positive lactic acid bacterium. The name comes from that all lactobacillus transform lactose and some other sugar to lactic acid. The lactic acid lowers the pH levels. This ability together with their ability to express and export bacteriocins is what gives them their ability to outcompete other bacteria and gives them their food preserving properties. We used specifically three species of lactobacillus in our project: Lactobacillus Bulgaricus, Lactobacillus Plantarum and Lactobacillus Reuteri.

A new probiotic chassi for iGEM

Historically most iGEM teams have worked with only a few model organisms, the vast majority of which is E. coli. While there are probiotic species of E. coli, like Nissle, which we also use in the project, we felt that it was important to help and extend the range of chassis available to allow people to take advantage of their different properties. For this reason we have decided to make the Lactobacillus genus more approachable for future iGEM teams and provide some fundamental parts for biobrick based synthetic biology. To learn more about our work with the Lactobacillus chassi check out chassi page .