Synthetic biology makes it possible to "eat biscuits to cure diabetes"

The team of Professor Tao Liu of Peking University School of Pharmacy and the team of East China Normal University Ye Haifeng used synthetic biology technology to develop a new type of cell.

Eat a biscuit to cure diabetes? This scene that many "sugar friends" dream of appeared in the recent international top journal "Nature Chemical Biology"-Professor Liu Tao's team from the School of Pharmacy of Peking University and Ye Haifeng's team from East China Normal University used synthetic biology technology to develop a New cell

"This is the first time that the gene code expansion technology has been used in cell therapy

Eating biscuits sounded the start of insulin production

Can insulin be produced in "sugar friends" only by eating "biscuits"? Actually no, the cookie is just a key

Ye Haifeng, one of the corresponding authors of the paper and a researcher at East China Normal University School of Life Sciences, explained that there are three codons that do not code for amino acids (also called terminator, whose function is to stop protein translation), and one of them can only listen to it through artificial modification.

As a result, the modified codon has a dual identity-when the special artificial amino acid in the biscuit comes, the codons are paired to start the translation process of insulin, and when the special artificial amino acid is gone, the codon is still a "terminator", the entire pipeline Closed

Open a "special line express" for artificial amino acids

But the problem comes again.

"We have opened

After a series of "manipulations", the unnatural amino acids in the biscuits directly become an important part of insulin in the organism

The official name of this "dedicated line express" is "bio-orthogonal", which means that man-made reactions will not be recognized by the "components" in the body, nor will it interfere with the endogenous biochemical process

Controlling blood sugar may become easier in the future

"Using our technology, only an unnatural amino acid with a concentration of nanomole per liter is needed.

Animal experiments have shown that the modified engineered cells are wrapped in materials and implanted under the skin of mice.

"Perhaps one day, you only need to take one unnatural amino acid medicine before meals every day, or eat foods containing unnatural amino acids that are suitable for diabetics, and you can control blood sugar

Professor Gu Zhen, Dean of the School of Pharmacy of Zhejiang University, believes that the creation of engineered cells through synthetic biology methods to produce therapeutic proteins is a solution to the poor stability of protein molecules including insulin, short biological half-life and their Challenging and attractive alternatives such as uncontrolled release