Engineered E. coli may lead to new drugs

Princeton, N.J. -- U.S. scientists said the creation of bacteria that respond to human hormones may lead to new treatments for such hormone-related ills as thyroid disease.

Developed by Princeton University chemists, the engineered bacteria might also detect hormone-mimicking pollutants, which can disrupt normal processes in the body.

Assistant Professor David Wood and Georgios Skretas, who earned his doctorate at Princeton in 2006 and is now at the University of Texas-Austin, designed the bacteria by linking the proteins that bind to estrogen with a protein required for growth in E. coli.

That design allows researchers to distinguish between compounds that stimulate the receptors and those that block them simply by observing bacterial cell growth. Since the bacteria respond quickly -- typically within about 15 hours -- they should be able to rapidly screen thousands of compounds that affect estrogen's activity, making an important contribution to the drug discovery process, Wood said.

"Our system is also very good at detecting weakly binding substances, which is essential for the identification of hormone-like pollutants, which are found in many substances, including plastics and cosmetics," he said.

The study appeared online June 15 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.