Thermal walkie-talkies instruct bacteria to deliver drugs and self-destruct

A new study from Caltech suggests a way to control bacteria, by manipulating the temperature around them to trigger when and where they release medicine, and when they might need to self-destruct. 

Already, microbes are being tested for their ability to fight disease, but being sent into the body without a clear goal isn't enough, as they tend to wind up in other organs, not just at the site of a tumor. If bacteria release a medicine payload in the wrong part of the body, a treatment may not be as effective, and side effects may occur. To combat this, the Caltech researchers developed a technique to control where the bacteria travel, and make sure they only target the desired areas.

"Bacteria can be designed to act like special agents fighting disease in our bodies," says Mikhail Shapiro, principal investigator on the study. "We're building walkie-talkies for the cells so we can both listen and talk to them."

These "special agents" get their orders through changes in temperature, which doctors could potentially trigger with directed pulses of ultrasound. To develop bacteria that respond to thermal cues, the researchers sought out genetic switches that already depend on temperature, and eventually settled on two candidate proteins: one from Salmonella, and another from a bacteriophage.

Using an engineering technique called "directed evolution," the team evolved versions of the proteins that activated at temperatures between 36? and 39? C (96.8? and 102.2? F). When these genetic switches are connected to certain processes, deliberate changes in temperature can trigger the desired results.