Biology:Isolation chip
The Isolation chip (or ichip) is a method of culturing bacteria. Using regular methods, 99% of bacterial species found in nature are not able to be cultured as they do not grow in conditions made in a laboratory, a problem called the great plate count anomaly.[1] The ichip instead cultures bacterial species within its soil environment using tiny diffusion chambers.[2] The soil is diluted in molten agar and nutrients such that only a single cell, on average, grows in the ichip's small compartments or wells, hence the term "isolation". The chip is then enclosed in a semipermeable plastic membrane and buried back in the dirt to allow in nutrients not available in the lab.[3] With this culturing method, about 50 to 60 percent of bacterial species are able to survive.[3]
This is of particular relevance to drug discovery. Notably, the bacterial species Eleftheria terrae, which makes the antibiotic teixobactin that has shown promise against many drug-resistant strains like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, was discovered using the ichip in 2015. In addition to antibiotics, it is argued that anti-cancer agents, anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressives (which have previously been discovered from bacteria) as well as potential energy sources could be discovered.[1]
The ichip was developed by the drug discovery company NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, founded by Kim Lewis and Slava Epstein.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "iChip: The future of antibiotic discovery". popsci.com. http://www.popsci.com/ichip-new-way-find-antibiotics-and-other-key-drugs. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
- ↑ Berdy, Brittany; Spoering, Amy L.; Ling, Losee L.; Epstein, Slava S. (October 2017). "In situ cultivation of previously uncultivable microorganisms using the ichip" (in en). Nature Protocols 12 (10): 2232–2242. doi:10.1038/nprot.2017.074. ISSN 1750-2799. https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2017.074.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "The age of infection". foreignpolicy.com. https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/30/the-age-of-infection-antibiotics-microbes-germ-ichip/. Retrieved 2 October 2015.
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