An interdisciplinary research team at the University of Waterloo has identified a pivotal mechanism in E. coli evolution that could revolutionize cancer therapy and biomanufacturing.
Led by Dr. Christian Euler in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Dr. Matthew Scott from the Department of Applied Mathematics, the team’s discovery offers new insights into cellular regulation with implications for producing essential products like insulin and mRNA vaccines.
The research builds on American biologist Richard Lenski’s experiment that tracks E. coli evolution in a glucose-only environment over the equivalent of millions of human years. This controlled setting has provided a unique window into bacterial adaptation, but the sheer volume of data has made analysis challenging.
The Waterloo team chose to focus on a regulatory mechanism involving the PykF protein which acts like a stoplight for bacterial metabolism. By removing this mechanism, bacteria grow faster and more efficiently. The researchers found parallels in cancer cells which have a similar mechanism. This discovery could inform new therapies by "resetting" the regulatory system to slow cancer tumor growth.
“A helpful analogy to understand this mechanism is the speedometer in a car. When you are driving through a town, where there are dangers to avoid, you need to know how fast you are going, so the speedometer is important. But, if you are on an open stretch of road with no risks, you can throw the speedometer out the window and put the pedal to the metal,” said Euler. “Our research opens up the potential to one day put a new stoplight on the road to limit cell growth rate.”
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