Miniaturized Growth Chambers for the Isolation of "Unculturable" Bacteria

用于分离“不可培养”细菌的微型生长室

• 批准号: 521843-2017
• 负责人: Ahmadi, Ali
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: University of Prince Edward Island
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Engage Grants Program
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=639291
• 关键词: Miniaturized; Growth; Chambers; Isolation; Unculturable

In the proposed project, to improve the current in situ bacteria isolation systems used by Nautilus, a noveldevice will be fabricated and tested to enable single-step growth and isolation of new bacteria that have, thusfar, resisted attempts to domesticate. Nautilus Biosciences Canada Inc. is a marine biotechnology companyfocused on the discovery and development of marine-derived natural products with applications in human andanimal health and wellness. Nautilus isolates and cultures bacteria from diverse geographic locations rangingfrom the tropics to Canada's Arctic. One of the main challenges to this type of compound discovery is thelimited ability of culturing cells, usually bacteria, in vitro. In fact, "The Great Plate Count Anomaly" suggeststhat only about 1% of bacteria are cultivable in laboratories. The remaining 99% are considered 'uncultivable',or have slow growth, due to the lack of chemical and physical factors present in the bacteria's naturalenvironments. Therefore, there is an increasing need for development of high throughput in situ technologiesfor cultivation of uncultivable species. The proposed microencapsulation chambers would address this need,and allow for greater culturing efficiency and a broader screening capability for therapeutics. To address thelimitations of the current iChip designs, we propose a new design of a growth chamber and amicrofluidic-based method of encapsulating bacteria in agarose micro-beads. Thus, the research proposedcould lead to the isolation of new bacteria which produce new, bioactive natural products.

在拟议的项目中，为了改进鹦鹉螺号目前使用的原位细菌分离系统，将制造并测试一种新颖的装置，以实现迄今为止无法驯化的新细菌的单步生长和分离。 Nautilus Biosciences Canada Inc. 是一家海洋生物技术公司，专注于发现和开发海洋衍生的天然产品，并将其应用于人类和动物的健康和保健领域。 Nautilus 从热带到加拿大北极等不同地理位置分离和培养细菌。此类化合物发现的主要挑战之一是体外培养细胞（通常是细菌）的能力有限。事实上，“平板计数大异常”表明只有大约 1% 的细菌可以在实验室中培养。剩下的 99% 被认为是“不可培养的”，或者生长缓慢，因为细菌的自然环境中缺乏化学和物理因素。因此，越来越需要开发用于培养不可培养物种的高通量原位技术。所提出的微胶囊室将满足这一需求，并实现更高的培养效率和更广泛的治疗筛选能力。为了解决当前 iChip 设计的局限性，我们提出了一种新的生长室设计和基于微流体的将细菌封装在琼脂糖微珠中的方法。因此，所提出的研究可能会导致分离出新的细菌，从而产生新的、具有生物活性的天然产物。