Organic mineral complexes with probiotic and antitumor activity research supported by Russian Science Foundation
A total of seven projects by KFU scientists were among the winners of this year’s competition.
Olga Ilyinskaya, Chair of the Department of Microbiology, noted that more than 400 applications were submitted to the Biology section of the competition this year.
“The gist of our project is to show whether probiotics (beneficial bacteria) and beneficial metabolites, which are called prebiotics, sorbed on the intestinal epithelium, really improve the state of intestinal microflora,” says she. “To date, scientific work is based, as a rule, on the study of the microbiome in feces. This is not enough to draw serious conclusions. To study the problem in more detail, it is necessary to study samples of intestinal wall tissue. This cannot be done in humans. We will conduct experiments on laboratory animals and plan to analyze both feces and the metagenome of intestinal wall biopsy specimens.”
Probiotic bacteria as well as prebiotics are immobilized by KFU scientists on a mineral carrier – zeolite.
“This is necessary for the drugs to enter the body gradually, step by step,” explained Ilyinskaya. “The gastrointestinal tract is an acidic environment in which they can die. We have to make sure that they survive. Slow, prolonged release of target drugs from the carrier (zeolite) is a very tricky problem that we will have to solve together.”
Ilyinskaya added that zeolites are excellent sorbents that absorb heavy metals and free radicals and that there are rich deposits of zeolite group minerals in the Drozhzhanoye District of Tatarstan. Now these minerals are actively used in agriculture to improve soil fertility, as well as in animal husbandry.
“At the moment we are comparing samples of zeolites that our geologists have provided, characterizing them by elemental composition, by pore size,” continued the scientist. “We have already loaded bacteria into them and watched their survival rate. Prebiotics are molecules, and they penetrate the micropores. The bacteria (probiotics) are larger, they are placed in the connected pores, the so-called windows that are in the mineral. To date, we have found that they are able to survive in the mineral for about 11 months.”
As part of this project, the scientists will also investigate how anti-tumor drugs based on ribonuclease enzymes, developed by scientists of the Department of Microbiology, will behave in the body.
“We will also put ribonucleases in a carrier (zeolite) and watch the safety of their catalytic activity in the gastrointestinal tract. We will find out how the drugs survive in the fluids of the gastrointestinal tract. The fact that a number of ribonucleases have antitumor activity has previously been shown on various tumor cell lines in the laboratory. It is important that zeolite is able to sorb free radicals, which are formed during chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and toxic metabolites. Minerals are not digested, and therefore zeolite will be removed from the body, and the target enzyme, having been released, will begin to act,” said the interviewee.
If the drug shows efficacy, it can be used for combined therapy in cancer. And probiotic preparations will help to restore intestinal microbiota after antibiotic therapy.
The Professor emphasized that the research is interdisciplinary – at the intersection of microbiology, geology and animal physiology.
The project is scheduled for three years.