{"id":496849,"date":"2026-02-24T18:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/496849\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T18:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:42:08","slug":"engineered-bacteria-target-tumors-from-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/496849\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineered Bacteria Target Tumors From Within"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBacteria spores enter the\u00a0tumour, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this organism prefers, and so it starts eating those nutrients and growing in size,\u201d said\u00a0Dr. Marc Aucoin<\/a>, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo. \u201cSo, we are now colonizing that central space, and the bacterium is essentially ridding the body of the\u00a0tumour.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Key to the approach is a bacterium called\u00a0Clostridium\u00a0sporogenes, which is commonly found in soil and can only grow in environments with absolutely no oxygen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The core of a solid, cancerous\u00a0tumour\u00a0is\u00a0comprised\u00a0of dead cells and is oxygen-free, making it an ideal breeding ground for the bacterium to multiply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there is a biological catch: when the cancer-eating organisms reach the outer edges of\u00a0tumours, they are exposed to low levels of oxygen and die without completing their mission to fully destroy them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To solve that problem, the researchers first added a gene to the organism from a related bacterium that can better tolerate oxygen, enabling it to live longer near the outside of a targeted\u00a0tumour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They then found a way to activate the oxygen-resistant gene at just the right time \u2013 critical to preventing bacteria from inadvertently growing in oxygen-rich places such as the bloodstream \u2013 by\u00a0leveraging\u00a0a phenomenon known as quorum sensing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In simple terms, quorum sensing involves chemical signals released by bacteria. Only when many bacteria have grown in a\u00a0tumour\u00a0is the signal strong enough to turn on the oxygen-resistant gene, ensuring it\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0happen too soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one\u00a0study<\/a>,\u00a0researchers\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0that\u00a0Clostridium\u00a0sporogenes\u00a0can be\u00a0modified to\u00a0tolerate oxygen. In a\u00a0follow-up study<\/a>, they tested their quorum sensing system by making bacteria produce\u00a0a green\u00a0fluorescent protein.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing synthetic biology, we built something like an electrical circuit, but instead of wires we used pieces of DNA,\u201d said\u00a0Dr. Brian Ingalls<\/a>, a professor of applied mathematics at Waterloo. \u201cEach piece has its job. When assembled correctly, they form a system that works in a predictable way.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers now plan to combine the oxygen-resistant gene and the quorum-sensing timing mechanism in one bacterium and test it on a\u00a0tumour\u00a0in pre-clinical trials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The promising project grew out of work by PhD student Bahram Zargar, who was supervised by\u00a0Ingalls\u00a0and Dr. Pu\u00a0Chen, a\u00a0retired professor of chemical engineering at Waterloo. The work reflects Waterloo\u2019s broader emphasis on interdisciplinary health innovation. Our engineers, mathematicians and life scientists are collaborating to design technology-enabled solutions that translate discovery into practical care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reference:\u00a0Sadr S, Zargar B, Aucoin MG, Ingalls B. Construction and functional characterization of a heterologous quorum sensing circuit in Clostridium sporogenes. ACS Synth Biol. 2025;14(12):4857-4868. doi:\u00a010.1021\/acssynbio.5c00628<\/a><\/p>\n

This article has been republished from the following materials<\/a>. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBacteria spores enter the\u00a0tumour, finding an environment where there are lots of nutrients and no oxygen, which this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-496849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}