The first clinical trial shows that engineered bacteria are feasible to treat phenylketonuria

Late last week, Synlogic, a synthetic biology company, announced data from a Phase 1/2a study that they designed for the treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU) in vivo biologics

These data are published in "Nature Metabolism"

Synlogic President and CEO Aoife Brennan said: "Our oral synthetic biopharmaceuticals are designed to meet the needs of Peking University patients of all ages and disease types by ingesting phenylalanine (Phe) in the gastrointestinal tract

PKU is an inherited metabolic disease that is not able to break down phenylalanine at birth, which is an amino acid commonly found in many foods

SYNB1618 is a strain of engineered Escherichia coli Nissle 1917, in which genes encoding phenylalanine ammonia lyase and L-amino acid deaminase have been inserted into the genome.

The increased dose-responsiveness of strain-specific phenylalanine metabolites in plasma and urine was observed, indicating that SYNB1618 can consume phenylalanine and convert it into non-toxic metabolites in the gastrointestinal tract of healthy volunteers and PKU patients

Synlogic's research team published a second paper last week, this time in "Communications Biology", describing the development of a model that predicts the reduction of phenylalanine in patients with PKU

The author writes that it is unclear to what extent the intake of phenylalanine from the gastrointestinal tract of SYNB1618 reduces plasma phenylalanine levels in patients with PKU

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In addition, the author also expanded the plasma phenylalanine kinetic model of PKU patients to provide information for the clinical development of potential treatments for PKU

Original search: Safety and pharmacodynamics of an engineered E.